


The Governor's Wife

by sweetsunray



Series: Woodes Rogers' Legacy [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Literary References & Allusions, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9789869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetsunray/pseuds/sweetsunray
Summary: expanded, fleshed out S4 plot: With the British defeat at the Maroon Island the rebellion on New Providence gains momentum. After hanging Charles Vane, Eleanor knowingly made herself a target. In order to protect Eleanor from the ire of the rebellion and shield her reputation amongst his own men, Woodes Rogers manouevers Eleanor into the respected background role of a wife. As the stakes get higher, the dangers more dire and enemies close in, there is very little Woodes would not do to keep his wife safe.(continuation of Queen of Thieves, the expanded, fleshed out S3 plot from Eleanor's and Rogers' POVs)





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Woodes Rogers has a colonial court he empowers it to pronounce divorces with the right to remarry, independently from England's Church Council. Commodore Chamberlain and the routed British surviving forces return broken. Max makes a deal with the governor. Eleanor and Woodes discuss how to proceed from hereon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Rogers POV only)

“Lord governor,” said Pastor Lambrick as he looked up from the legal bill that Rogers and his lawyers had drawn up. “The Church of England only allows divorce in the case of adultery, and the people in question cannot remarry!”

Rogers flexed his jaw annoyed, but he had come prepared for this. “Judge Adams could you please explain it to Pastor Lambrick.”

The copious man said, “Massachusetts Bay approved of a judicially decreed divorce in 1639. Pennsylvania and New Haven have their own courts assess such cases, without involving Whitehall or the Church Council in England.”

“But –“

“As governor I can empower my court in these matters,” Said Rogers. “Many of the men now pardoned were once forced onto the account by the pirates. These men have wives somewhere in England or Ireland, but have not seen them for many years. Instead they formed a relation here in Nassau, they might even have children here. Now, I could drag them before court and convict them for adultery or send them packing to their English wives. In doing so, I run the risk of losing them to the rebels either here or at sea. Or I can regulate their domestic situation. At the very least their second wives will convince them not to run off to this Long John Silver.”

Judge Adams said, “It would also legitimize any children they might have. Bastards are non-citizens and are the parish’s responsibility to provide for. We gain citizens and save money if we legalize them.”

Rogers leaned on his elbows. “Indeed.” He smiled reassuringly to the pastor. “The bill still adheres to canon law insofar that only adultery or non- adherence to marriage duties are grounds for divorce. You would not have to declare the divorces. You only have to marry them and Christen their children.” He coughed. “Unless you have further ethical objections? If so, I will be obliged to invite another clergyman to Nassau.”

Eyes wide, pastor Lambrick nodded and shook his head simultaneously all at once. “That will not be necessary, my lord. I-I see your point completely. Yes, yes. It would improve Christian morality amongst the people of Nassau.”

Rogers heaved a deep breath and smiled contently. “Thank you, pastor.” Rogers pushed a file in the direction of Judge Adams. “My Lord Adams, this will be your first divorce case.”

The judge lifted his eyebrows, discreetly opened the file, peeked inside and rapidly closed it again. “I will give it my utmost priority.”

The governor smiled politely. “It would be greatly appreciated.”

Just then Lieutenant Perkins intruded on the meeting. “My Lord, the fleet has been sighted.”

“Gentlemen,” said Rogers to the judge and pastor, while he gestured his goodbye to them. As they filed out, he took his cane and got up. “What was the first impression?” he asked Perkins.

“Heavily battered, sir.”

Rogers sighed. “Well, let us hope that they return victorious nonetheless.”

But as he went below, he soon learned of the defeat. Through the main gate, patched up regulars limped by, carrying either dangerously wounded comrades or the dead, with the haunted empty look of defeat. Rogers felt his knees buckle at the sight of the throng of survivors. Coming up behind him, Eleanor rushed to his side, grabbing his hand. He poured strength from that for a moment, before letting go. “I have to be with them,” he rasped. “They fought and lost for me.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “I will be here when you return.”

He stepped out into the sunlight and for a fleeting glance met Max’s wide open eyes as she stared at the procession of the slain. Rogers joined his men, walking side by side with them to the sick bay. Some men stared ahead of themselves into nothingness, hardly noticing him. Others did recognize him, and a glint of fire sparked in their eyes as they saw their own struggle reflected in his healing cuts and scars, his hollow cheeks and recovering frame. These men realized they had battled in hell and carnage for a man who would have fought alongside them if he could have, a man who cared, a man who had gone before them, fighting Charles Vane with his bare hands himself. These men gained a look of determination as they passed Vane’s gibbet.

Rogers spent the rest of the day at the sick bay, listening to them, hearing story after story. One man recounted how one mate of his was shot in the head as they jumped out of the launches, and his other mate’s leg had been blown off by gunpowder laid out at the shore. But he had done his duty and his mortar shot had blasted a portion of the barricades to splinters. “Killed three of those motherfuckers, sir. I did. And sent the rest running, before I was shot.” He had been lucky. Somehow the bullet that had entered his eye had ricocheted against his socket and never entered his brain.

“Crushed by debris, sir,” said a sailor who’s lower leg was amputated. It reeked of putrid. “A fleet of seven ships appeared from around the bend, flying the black. I heard it was Blackbeard and that Calico Jack. We gunned them to keep them at a distance. It was easy with their broadside to us. And then one of our civilian ships in the line, the _Orion_ , gunned us with its stern chasers.”

A massive captain of the regulars held the hand of his unconscious comrade. “It won’t be the head wound that will do him in,” the man said. “It’s the knife wound in his gut. I carried him all the way from the maroon settlement to the beach on my back.”

Rogers looked closer at the man. He had learned their names by heart on the voyage to Nassau from England. Men felt empowered when their superior could address them by name. “What happened, Captain Berringer.”

A spark ignited in Berringer’s eyes. “An ambush, sir. Captain Hornigold cautioned against going after the bloody devils when they retreated. But up stepped one of the pirates hours later, saying he had enough of Flint and he would lead us to the settlement and the cache.”

 “And Hornigold believed him?”

 “Not without some evidence first, sir. Hornigold handed him a gun and asked him to shoot one of the devils we captured on the beach – his former crewmember. The bastard shot him without blinking an eye. So, Hornigold and his vanguard followed him to the settlement and only then had us called up. Just as we arrived, Hornigold shouted it was a trap. That’s when they jumped us from under the ground and every bush. Less than half of us made it out of that hellhole back alive. And we lost more men while being gunned in the sloops to get back to the ships.” He stood and faced Rogers. “But I can assure you, sir, they will pay for that. We went in green, but came out wiser.”

Rogers appraised the man. He had no scratch on him. “And Hornigold?”

“Him and his vanguard are dead, sir.” And then the man looked at him. Really looked at Rogers, and asked, “Has there been any trouble here in our absence?”

“There are a few insurgents, writing threat notes to those who took the pardon, making demands. Captain Throckmorton was one of them. They hanged him yesterday. I declared martial law.”

Captain Berringer touted his lips. His face hardened and he straightened himself. “I will report for duty at once, sir.” 

Rogers nodded and smiled. “You are a good man, Captain Berringer.”

“I don’t know if I am, but I am committed.”

When finally, Rogers left the sick bay, he nearly bumped into the commodore. “Miss Guthrie informed me I could find you here, my lord.”

Rogers inclined his head and feigned a little smile. “You found me, Commodore.” He gestured at the street. “Join me.”

The commodore’s account was stripped of all the color and feeling of the soldiers’ stories, a summation of casualties, estimation of damage and ship loss. The _Orion_ had been taken while the _HMS_ _Shark_ and Hornigold’s _Royal Lion_ had been destroyed. The HMS _Millford_ and HMS _Rose_ were in need of repairs. Over a hundred regulars had died in the woods and the beach, at least as many were wounded. Hornigold’s men had been nearly wiped out clean, and a third of the plantations’ militia was lost. Due to one battle and illness, Rogers’ forces had been reduced to half it had been – over seven hundred men. _That is at least the double of Athens’ three hundred._

 “If Miss Guthrie had not sent Captain Hornigold and the civilian ships along, we would have won,” said Chamberlain. “Hornigold fell for the trap and it was a civilian ship led by untrained men that allowed itself to be overrun by a pirate vanguard to gun us from our own line at close range.”

“Thank you, Commodore,” said Rogers as they arrived at the mansion. “See to the repairs immediately. I presume you have already left a report for me in my office?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

Max awaited him in his office. And he knew her reasons for coming when he saw the note she held in her hands. It had a black spot. “My lord, this was delivered to Khar, one of Throckmorton’s men.”

Rogers picked it up and read it. “I defeated the governor’s forces and fleet and reckoned with the traitor Captain Hornigold and your Captain Throckmorton. Join them, or repent. Have Captain Vane removed from the gibbet by nightfall. Yours truly, Long John Silver.” Rogers pressed his lips together. With the openly seen defeat of his men in the street, more men would choose to join the rebels. Meanwhile, Eleanor had decreed to have Vane removed only by nightfall tomorrow. Even if Rogers did not remove Vane from the gibbet today, it would look like he gave into it by tomorrow, especially if anything happened to Khar. “What did Khar have to say about this?”

“He cursed them for killing his captain yesterday and challenged them to try.”

“Where is he now?”

“He took Mrs. Underhill and her daughter back to the interior in a skiff,” Max said. Rogers cursed under his breath and crumpled the letter. “And there is something else. I checked my books and inventories. It turned out that I owned more than originally thought – arms, gunpowder, ammunition. Since I did not buy or sell stolen cargo, after I bought the consortium’s shares, I was unaware of a certain storage, that Mr. Scott had not liquidated as he did for the warehouses. However, when I inspected the storage itself, it was empty.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It appears that Mr. Scott used my storage, Eleanor’s storage, to set aside supplies for the maroons. He has been unaccounted for since your arrival in the bay,” Max said. Eleanor had told him about Hornigold’s suspicions about Mr. Scott. She had tried to mask her pain of knowing her lifelong mentor had knowingly chosen to fight her, when she told him last night. “And yet, my storage was not emptied of these supplies when you secured Nassau. It was done on the night of Mr. Dufresne’s murder. The books and the murder were a diversion, my lord, to make us look one way, while the pirates pillaged it for arms.”

“You know this?”

“I have made inquiries via those I trust, yes,” she said.

Rogers chuckled. “And I suppose you do not have any intention of giving up the names of your sources.”

Max shook her head. “No, my lord. It seems to me this is a point where the resistance can gain momentum. Would it not be better if my sources can gain their trust, know their plans, their movements? I could pass on the information to you for your benefit.” Max licked her lips and shifted on the chair. “It would therefore be better if you lift me from my military escort. Allow the rebels to feel safe and complacent in my tavern and brothel. It would only help me to gain more information and allow them to make mistakes. But if I am under constant protection by your personnel, I fear it would only make them more secretive with the real information you need. I have my own bodyguards, my lord.”

Rogers dropped his hand on the desk. He smiled at Max. “Well played.”

“You agree to this?”

“Yes,” he said. He lifted his eyebrows at her. “But I will need results.”

Max stood, far more relaxed than when he entered. “You will.”

Next, he asked for Perkins to gather a small group of regulars and had them sent to the Underhill estate immediately, with the orders to seek out Khar as well as relay the information to the family that the maroons had been supplied from Nassau by Mr. Scott. When they were gone, he took Chamberlain’s report and read it, standing by the window.

The door opened gently and Eleanor stepped inside, lingering at the doorway. She bowed her head and sagged her shoulders. “It’s all my fault. I should have sent more, or wait until you were recovered. And Vane’s hanging -”

“No more of this, Eleanor,” he said. He extended his hand to her. She came to him and took his. He lifted her chin so he could look into her sad, blue eyes. “You sent all that you could send. Captain Hornigold was as cautious as any man could be. I’ve listened to the men. He realized it was a trap, shortly before Flint and his men jumped them, and ordered a retreat. Without Hornigold, without your foresight, we would have lost more. I have no doubt on that.”

“But the _Orion_.”

Rogers shook his head. “Chamberlain is a fool to believe the HMS _Millford_ could not have been boarded and overrun in a similar manner. Every one of them made the mistake to only have eyes for Teach’s fleet, not their backs.” He smiled at her. “Not every battle is winnable, Eleanor, and sometimes there are only bad options when intelligent men are committed to war against all reason.” He stroked her chin with his thumb.  “In such a situation we have only one option left – win the war.”

“What will you do?”

Rogers stepped back and walked to his office window from where he could see Charles Vane’s display in the gibbet. Tomorrow it would be gone. He looked forward to it, but he refused to go against Eleanor’s decree. “What will I do?” _Were I a Greek, I could build temples, offer sacrifices and plead with the Pythoness to advise me on whether I could defeat the Persians._ _No doubt she would answer me in a double tongue and tell me I could destroy an empire, without me knowing whether she means the pirates or the British._ He did not answer her that. Instead he said, “If people consider joining the rebels out of fear of Long John Silver, then I will have to make them fear us more. If the rebels hate you for hanging Vane, I will make them hate me more. We mount our defenses of the fortress, to prepare for an attack from either Spain or the pirate fleet. I will award those who provide us with information and have anyone found colluding with the enemy tried for treason.”

Eleanor stepped up beside him and caressed his shoulder. It gentled the hardened feelings in him. He turned his head halfway to take in the golden halo of her hair. “Do you think Flint and Teach will attack soon?” she asked.

“Not as long as we still have a considerable naval fleet in the bay. They halved my forces, but they are still outnumbered. It would be suicidal for them to attack at this moment.”

“And Spain?”

Rogers sighed. _Yes, what about Spain?_ “They have not made a move yet. I think Spain hopes the pirates will weaken us further. If that is true, neither will make a move before the other, and that buys us time.”

Eleanor frowned. “In the meantime our commerce will fall flat. With the pirates having a fleet so nearby they can harass merchant ships going or coming.”

Rogers raised his eyebrows at her perceptiveness. Though it should not have surprised him as much anymore. Commerce was indeed a problem. He needed money to invest in the fort and he needed to pay off loans. “Well, Chamberlain will have to make himself useful in keeping the nearby waters clear and defend any commercial vessel with an escort.”

Eleanor moved away from him and paced his office. “Flint will require supplies as well for his small army.”

“Yes, and Max just confirmed to me that Mr. Scott embezzled you to supply the maroons all those years.”

Eleanor halted mid-step. “I suspected as much.” She shook her head. “Regardless, their island is effectively cut off from Nassau supplies. They will have to hunt cargo.” She began her pacing again. “But they lack experienced captains. On open sea, we might lure those out and let the naval captains overtake them. At least we can reduce the size of their fleet that way.”

Rogers stepped up to her and pulled her to him, nodding. “We took a blow, but we are not defeated, nor are we without resources. And since I’m to have the smartest wife in the New World we might win it.”

Eleanor blushed and put her arms around his shoulders. “I must confess I am puzzled how I can become your wife, when you are already married.”

“I gave our court the power to pronounce divorces with the right to remarry and filed my case with Judge Adams.”

Eleanor frowned. “What happens to Sarah then?”

“Well, she would be free to remarry herself, if she wants, or join her brother’s home. She hates living under my mother’s roof. So, I expect her to welcome the freedom to do with her life as she wants, especially since we separated years ago.”

“And your children?”

He pulled her closer. “They will remain under my mother’s custody, but naturally she may visit them.”

“You won’t send for them?”

Rogers shook his head. “God no, not before they’re older. I have enough on my mind protecting you from your enemies.” He leaned in to kiss her rosebud lips. For a sweet long moment he allowed himself the taste of his nectar. Then he broke the kiss and let go of her waist. “And that is all the more reason to not let us get carried away and abstain instead.”

“What? Why?” Eleanor backed away in surprise. “I don’t recollect any abstention last night.”

“We have to do this right.” He smiled as he took a tress of her hair in his fingers, before letting it go with a sigh. “For your standing with my men. For my credibility as governor. And yes, even out of respect for Sarah.” _I put her into the limelight and at risk._ Rogers had no intention of doing so again.

“How long?”

With a straight face and in all seriousness, he said, “Until we are married.”

“How long?” she insisted.

“First, Judge Adams will have to make his judgment, and I will have to send word for Sarah; allow sailing time for her to receive word.” He drawled, enjoying the sight of her face darkening. “Ahm, that would be a fortnight. Then we have to announce the banns. So, more than a month.”

Eleanor looked appalled. “The banns! More than a fucking month!”

He chuckled at her obvious frustration. While Eleanor had gotten better in guarding her language, she could not control her swearing when emotional, especially when she did not get her way. He reached for her waist to gather her to him again. “You have a lifetime to make up for it with wifely duties,” he teased.

“Life can be fucking short around here,” she warned him, as she balled her fists against his chest and resisted his pull. “You almost died twice the past month!”

“Well, perhaps I can convince Pastor Lambrick to agree to a license,” he whispered in her ear, breathing in her fragrance. It would not be easy to abstain. He wanted her that very moment, merge with her, lose himself in her. But one of his duties as her husband-to-be was to preserve some semblance of honor. Even his divorce request might cause a ripple amongst his officers, especially Chamberlain. Just a nuzzle. And he planted a kiss in her neck, beneath her ear. “And then we can be married in a fortnight.”

“You get such a license!” She stabbed her finger in his chest, stepping away. “And let me remind you that a husband has duties as well.”

As she moved away towards the door, he called out after her. “It would also be better if we were chaperoned in the meantime.” He was not sure whether he could preserve decorum around her otherwise, for long.

“Fuck chaperones. I’m not having that!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literary allusion to the Greek-Persian wars: the 300 of Athens, and Delphi's Oracle that according to Herodotus prophesied that if King Croesus of Lydia sought war with the Persian Cyrus the Great he would make a great empire fall. While Athens managed to stop Persia and Darius in its expansive tracks, it was not until Alexander the Great that the Persian Empire was truly defeated. Croesus reigned for 14 years, but was defeated by Cyrus. While Woodes Rogers was not the actual governor in place between his 1st and 2nd term, the king allowed him governor's wages for the years he was in debtor's prison until he second term, so at least he was paid as a governor for 14 years. Of course the ambiguity is whether Woodes Rogers represents the Greeks or Persia, and which king he'd be then. Obviously, Woodes wishes he could identify himself with a classical victor (as would Flint).
> 
> Divorce laws: In England you had two possibilities - divorce or annullment. Both were decided by the Church of England Council (clergymen) or had to be filed before Parliament. Prior to the 17th century an adulterer received the death penalty, making the innocent party a widow or widower who could then remarry. With the expansion of the empire, it was easier for an adulterer to escape justice. As long as the adulterer was alive, the abandoned partner would not be able to remarry. Hence, the English Church allowed them to file for divorce and gain the right to remarry as if they were widowed. Divorces were also granted to couples who were effectively separated from bed and table for years. In such a case neither were allowed to remarry. It merely excused them of their sexual duties, and preserved the legitimacy of their children. An annullment gave the right to both parties to remarry, but could only be granted if there was a pre-existing impediment to consummation or the marriage turned out to be illegal in some way (pre-existing marriage, age, or proximity of blood). The children of an annulled marriage became bastards. 
> 
> 4x01's reveal of Woodes Rogers' marriage to Eleanor Guthrie would have been impossible in England. However, the colonies had their civil courts decide on the matter, and the norms varied when granting a divorce, and also in the allowance to remarry. In general, the northern colonies were more liberal, while the southern colonies tried to prevent it. Knowing that a large number of the early settlers were banished people or people running from the law, sometimes leaving a wife or husband behind, and that it was in the colony's interest they procreated and these children were legitimized, we can understand why the colonies felt a need to deviate from the Church Canon up to a level. Bringing the people of Nassau into a legitimate civil marriage situation would be an example for liberal divorce procedures being put into place, and Rogers uses it to his advantage. This is how I try to reconcile the show's canon with historical examples of the colonial period. It is however, a complete fiction, as the historical Woodes Rogers remained officially married to Sarah Whetstone, though they were in practice separated since 1713, and there certainly is no historical record of him having married another woman. 
> 
> Banns and Marriage License: this Church Canon became state law in England in 1753 and also enforced the rule that people had to marry in a church (with the exemption of Jews). Before that time, if a priest married a couple without banns or license or outside a church, the English Chuch might regard that as a clandestine marriage, but legally it stood. Rogers could likely pressure Pastor Lambrick to do this for him and Eleanor as soon as he has a judge declare the divorce. But as the governor, he'd prefer to make it as socially acceptable as he can. And it allows me to make time jumps to reach 4x01 as quickly as possible. 
> 
> Delay of Flint's attack: Many people wonder how come Flint and Teach did not attack Nassau immediately, after the battle of the Maroon Island. First of all, Flint and Teach did not whipe out +1500 (the number that Flint estimates in 3x07 to the Maroon Queen) men in the battle of 3x10. They would still have been outnumbered at the time. Since the rebellion was still in its 1st week and only counted a handful, they had no local army. Most likely they had to rely on choking Nassau's commerce while ensuring their own supply by hunting cargo. Flint and Teach sailed onto Nassau with only four ships in 4x01, while in 3x10 Teach's fleet counted 6, add the Walrus, and the captured Orion. It appears 4 ships were lost in between 3x10 and 4x1. So, there were skirmishes at sea, where Flint and Teach lost the minor ships. Rogers' civilian fleet seems to have remained mostly intact. He still had 3 sloops to chase Teach in 4x01, and two more ships.


	2. The Debutante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor becomes Long John Silver's target, forcing her to stay indoors, while Rogers has to suppress a riot and makes arrests. Max visits Eleanor and passes on the name of a rebel. Eleanor realizes that Rogers carries a guilt towards her and relents to his social wishes. To take her mind of her situation and to show the rebels the English spirit is not defeated, Rogers wants her to organize a ball.

Life had changed drastically for Eleanor by to that of a recluse. Even though she was still the governor’s advisor she only saw Woodes during meals, served him tea and met him for an hour in his office once a day to discuss plans. Not wanting to be idle, she spent half her days at the sick bay to help out the doctor and the nurses with the wounded men. Until a particular incident made her see reason that it was for the better if she remained indoors.

Khar had made it back alive to Nassau in his skiff and still lived for another day after Charles was finally taken down from the gibbet. But he was found dead in his skiff, with his throat slit, four days after he received the black spot. Another note had been attached to his body, calling for the capture of Eleanor Guthrie, or as the note would have it, “The governor’s whore”. Woodes did not want Eleanor to go to the sick bay anymore. But Mr. Eames lingered between death and life from a head wound and she refused to abandon the boy. So, he had doubled her escort. When she arrived at the sick bay, however, Mr. Eames had died that day. Distressed over the pale look of death on the cheerful boy so near being a man that she remembered, she had chosen to walk the beach. Eleanor had needed it and the sea, for comfort, to grieve. She had seen but hardly registered the man coming her way. Until he spat in her face.

“Whore!” he shouted.

Never before had Eleanor been afraid, but already emotionally vulnerable due to grief, it shook her. Tall Bill Johnson smacked her assailant down with the butt of his musket into the sand. And then mayhem ensued, with the men of the beach charging towards them, attacking her guards. It turned half into a riot. She was grabbed and pulled and pushed, until fires were shot and her escort rushed her back to the street. Only back safe in the mansion did she realize half her frock had been torn.

Still half-confused and in shock she let Mrs. Hudson guide her to her room and help her undress, when Woodes dashed into her room, not caring about propriety then. “Are you hurt?” He took her by the arms, bent and looked into her eyes. “Eleanor?”

“No. No!” she said as if finally coming back full to her senses. “I’m unharmed. I’m unharmed. They just tore my frock that is all.” And it had been her favorite dress – the red one with the roses.

Woodes heaved a breath of relief and gathered her into his arms, holding her to his chest. She felt his heart beat against her own. Eleanor closed her eyes and leaned on his shoulder, glad for his warmth, for his closeness, for the hand wrapped around her head, and the kiss he planted on the top of her head. “You’re not going outside anymore, not until I’ve cleared the street and the beach. The sick bay will have to go without your assistance.”

“No. Yes.” She was the first to break away and look up to him. “I don’t have to go there anymore. Mr. Eames is dead.”

Her words turned a sad smile on his face. “I’m sorry to hear of it. He was a kind young man.” Eleanor leaned her head back onto his shoulder and sighed, and he held her for some moment more, until he peeled her arms away. “I have to go, Eleanor. Oversee the clamping down of the riot.”

Mrs. Hudson helped her out of the rest of the ruined dress. “That was improper,” she said. “You should not have allowed him in your room, when only half dressed.”

“We are engaged,” said Eleanor. “Judge Adams decreed his divorce act.” She deepened her voice and repeated the words. “Know ye that Woodes Rogers of Bristol in the County of Nassau in the Bahamas, Governor, and Sarah his wife - in consideration of the want of mutual love & affection between them and for sundry acts which they each acknowledge is the strongest proof for any divorce in Law - part with each other and separate, never to molest or disturb each other if either of them should marry again, but will look upon themselves as though they had never married at all.” Eleanor shook her head. “Besides, he has seen more.”

Mrs. Hudson sighed and turned around to face her, after picking out a new dress and laying it ready for her, after her bath to wash of the grime and dust of her altercation. “Exactly why he should not see you half-dressed now, as that reveals all the more that he has seen you naked before your wedding night.”

“Can an engaged man not show his affection and concern for his fiancé if a mob attacked her?”

“Of course he can. And of course a man will come to make sure not a hair is wronged of his wife-to-be. It is therefore your responsibility that you guard him of doing so when it is improper. You have to play the part of a respectable lady, for his sake and yours, for your marriage, especially since your engagement is not public knowledge, yet.”

Eleanor closed her eyes in frustration and blew out her breath, feeling the restrictions of English society they were imposing on her tightening around her. While Woodes and she had little moments together, they were too few and at night she tossed and turned from yearning. Their partnership just seemed to flow better if she was present at every of his meetings or could discuss whatever was on her mind during their pillow talk.

She was just dressed after her bath when Perkins informed her that Max was downstairs and inquired whether Eleanor was willing to see her now. “Yes, she is welcome.”

Mrs. Hudson asked, “Shall I go?”

Eleanor pulled at her frock and remembered Woodes’s advice not to see Max alone, if possible. _And yet, Max might want to pass on sensitive information._ “Please stay for the moment, though I might send you downstairs to fetch some refreshments.”

Max was shown in, opened her mouth and then closed it again when she noticed Mrs. Hudson. Eleanor introduced the two women to each other, and then Mrs. Hudson seated herself in a chair and picked up a book.

Eleanor invited Max to sit. She fidgeted with her frock for a moment, looked at Mrs. Hudson and then at Eleanor.  “I came to see whether you are alright.”

 “I am fine yes. And Tall Bill’s head wound is only a minor injury.”

“Oh, Eleanor –“

“Please don’t Max.” Eleanor shook her head. She knew what Max wanted to say. That she had warned her to make sure that nobody would blame her for Charles Vane. But some things were impossible. And she had done the exact opposite, on prupose.“I had to take the risk.”

Max lowered her eyes and nodded. “The governor read the riot act earlier. Any group of twelve people or larger has to disperse. One of your attackers that was shot by your escort is dead. Three men have been arrested and put inside the fort. The redcoats have been tearing through the beach tents, rounded up possible suspects. Most of the rioters fled Nassau altogether.”

Eleanor looked over her shoulder. “Mrs. Hudson could you please arrange for some refreshment?”

“Of course,” said the chambermaid, rising from the chair. “Did you have anything particular in mind?”

Max was no fan ot tea and Mrs. Hudson would moan over a bottle of pure rum. Eleanor chose a compromise. “I think I still feel somewhat shaky. Do we have some rum-punch?”

“I can ask.”

“And some lime water as well, please,” she called after Mrs. Hudson.

Max’s eyes followed Mrs. Hudson out the door and then she leaned closer. “Why do you keep her around, when you don’t like her?”

Eleanor smiled. “I like her well enough. She is a form of support, in her own way.”

“She appears more like a guard than a friend.”

That made Eleanor chuckle. _In more ways than one._ “She is - guarding my honor, mentoring me on how to be a lady.”

Max burst out in laughter and Eleanor could not help but giggle along. “It is true then?” Max smiled secretively at her.

“What?”

“The rumor that the governor divorced his wife and intends to marry you.” Max looked at Eleanor’s necklace that Eleanor unconsciously had been playing with. “He gave you that, didn’t he?”

Eleanor blushed, let go of the necklace and scratched behind her ear nervously. “It is true, but please keep it to yourself for now.”

Max smirked. “Congratulations. You have done very well for yourself.” For a moment, Eleanor did not know where to look or what face to make. On the one hand joy soared , for she had found a true, reliable partner in Woodes in ways she could never have imagined until she got to know him. But she did not like what Max implied. Eleanor would marry him if he were a beggar just as well. Much softer, Max said, “He makes you glow.”

Eleanor flicked her eyes at Max, smiled and lowered her eyes. “Thank you.”

Max sat up more straight. “I confess the governor almost had me convinced that he set you aside over the hanging. You were not often seen in his company anymore.” She licked her lips. “This false impression might even have given those fools today the courage to attack you. Any such beliefs were crushed today by the governor, armed and on a war path, ordering Captain Berringer to search the beach and make arrests. Still, you would do better to caution him against punishing these men too harshly.”

Eleanor remembered Woodes’ advice to not let her be influenced by Max too easily, especially not without the presence of a third person. “Was this the sole reason you came to see me, Max?”

“No.” Max pulled a paper from her skirt pocket and gave it to Eleanor.

By nightfall, Woodes had returned and Eleanor went to his office. Woodes leaned his arm against the wall, his other hand on his side, as he stared out of the window. Something about him was different. It was not just the dark green sturdy justaucorps, green shirt and cravat that he wore, or the sword belt hanging across the back of his chair. His eyes were harder. She had met such eyes in the past – the grim battle eyes of a pirate captain.

Eleanor joined his side. “What do you intend to do with the men that were arrested?”

“Have them tried for assault, breaking the King’s peace and rioting.”

“And what would be the punishment for that?” she whispered.

He glanced at her for the moment, before resting his eyes onto the square covered in darkness again. “Since I read the riot act on the steps of the mansion, anyone who refused to disperse could receive the death penalty.”

Eleanor closed her eyes. _This is bad._ Vane’s hanging was supposed to be the sole one. If four men were hanged all at once, it seemed to make Charles’ challenge come true – they cannot hang us all. “Surely it does not have to come to that. I was never actually harmed. Are we even sure they belong to the resistance?”

“They are being interrogated.” He let go of the wall, turned and took her hand, meeting her eyes, though his eyes remained cold. “I know Max visited you this afternoon, so spare me her reasoning. I cannot let men who assaulted a woman, let alone my wife, go unpunished.”

“I’m not your wife yet,” Eleanor muttered, lowering her eyes, fitting her hand in his. “Our engagement is not even public knowledge.” She looked up at him. “You yourself reasoned that the less motive we give the rebels to blame me, the better. If you hang four men because they wanted me off their beach, would that not only make them hate me more?”

“It is not their beach, but the King’s.”

Woodes seemed bent on this course as much as she had been on Vane’s hanging. It was personal to him. She stroked his hand. “You could give them lesser punishments and hang another for another crime, less related to me.” She pressed the paper that Max had given her into his palm.   

Woodes took a step back and unfolded the paper. “What is this?”

“The name of Khar’s murderer. He used to be one of Throckmorton’s crew as well, but fearing he might be next to receive the black spot, he killed his former brother.” Eleanor watched as Woodes furrowed his brow. “This is why Max came to see me. She says he is not in Nassau at the moment, but she is sure he cannot stay away from one of her girls, Esther, for too long. She will keep a lookout on Esther and send one of her boys to us if he is in town so we may apprehend him. Hang _him_ for murder, let the others go.”

His jaw flexed and his eyes turned thoughtful as he stared at the name. “Alright. I make no promises. But I will delay the trials of the rioters for a few days, so that when we apprehend this man, I can suggest Judge Adams to pronounce far more lenient punishments if they confess and express regret for their actions.” Relieved she flung her arms around his neck, and pressed her head on his shoulder. Woodes laid one arm around her middle, the other around her head and kissed her on the top of it.

By instinct, she kissed him in the neck, kiss after feathery kiss, while one hand glided across his coat. One night he asked her to be his wife, made passionate love to her, had no moral issue whatsoever with it, and then the next day on a whim he worried what it would look like if they continued sleeping with each other before they were wed. Eleanor had only agreed to it, because she believed he would change his mind just as quickly. But Woodes had been more stubborn than she had anticipated.

“Eleanor,” he sighed as a reminder of their agreement, but his shuddered breath and his beating heart betrayed him. He did not even step away from her. She kissed his lips, again and again, longer and sweeter every time. He was close to crumbling. “Please, Eleanor,” he moaned. Then their tongues touched and her hand crawled across his chest downward. Finally, he gave into the kiss, grabbing her face, dominating the kiss with passion. Until she pressed her hand into his arousal. He came up for air, pushed her away. “No, Eleanor.” He turned away from her, stumbling almost.

It hurt. The rejection hurt. “I can’t bear it anymore!” she raised her voice. Woodes glanced at her, scared and accusingly almost. “I lie awake for hours, completely in a knot, annoyed and excited, too much frustrated energy. And even with your presence in my mind, the release that can make me fall asleep is often hours out of reach, because you’re not really there.”

Wide eyed, Woodes stared at her, rubbing his forehead. He looked just as hurt, like a wounded animal. “Do you think you’re the only one lying awake at night?” His voice was strained. Eleanor took a step towards him, her hands extended. But he backed away into his bedroom. “I’m doing this for you. I have to do right by you.” He heaved a deep breath and shook his head, shielding himself from her getting any closer. “Allow me to make _this at least_ right for you,” he begged her.

For the first time, Eleanor realized his reasons for this self-denial went deeper than social appearance. He spoke as if he had wronged her, and Eleanor was not convinced this had even anything to do with their affair. Her instincts wanted to press her advantage. But her intuition, that cared about his well being, knew she would not resolve anything that way. If she waved his internal struggle off, he would never be victorious over it. Eleanor stepped away slowly. “I will.”

He relaxed visibly. “It will look official enough during the ball three days from now.”

“A ball?” That was the first time Eleanor had ever heard about a ball. “You are taking me to a ball?”

“You are to organize one – invitations, food, tea and musicians.”

“Me? I never organized a ball before!” In fact, Eleanor only vaguely remembered a ball being held at Nassau once, when she was too young to attend. But she had her mother promise to tell her all about it in detail and color upon her return. “Last time anyone organized a ball in Nassau was before the turn of the century. This very moment, we lost ships and men,  a rebellion is growing at our doorstep, you declared martial law and read the riot act. Do you really think that is the best time to organize such entertainment?”

Woodes had recovered himself fully. “Yes, this is exactly the best time for it. Today’s riot was fueled by the belief that we are weak and wounded. A ball will show the resistance that we are not broken. Besides, this town needs something else to gossip and talk about other than ghosts, black spots, hangings and riots.”

 _Either Woodes is a fool or a genius._ Not even Eleanor was sure which. “And who am I to invite to this event?”

“Officers, the council, respectable merchants and their wives, the pastor... Mrs. Hudson can help you out and I am sure some of the officers’ wives will want to be of assistance to you.”

“What about security? I am not so sure it will have the effect it might have on the rebels as you seem to think. The resistance will most certainly see an opportunity in such an event.”

“Let me handle security.” He smiled at her. “As to the other point - at the very least it will give you something else to keep you awake at night.”

It certainly did. Not only did it set her to task on an event that seemed both too costly and frivolous for the issues they were facing. She was baffled by the customs surrounding it, the typical foods and sups that went with it, the reinstallation of the assembly hall, finding musicians, making them get along and play in unison, as well as playing danceable Scottish airs. Mrs. Hudson helped her out with the invitations and the basics of the menu, but also insisted she needed a suitable dress. Since Eleanor could not go to the fitting shop, the seamstress had to come to her. And then she was forced to work together with some of the Englishwomen. While she was grateful for Mrs. Soames and Mrs. Rawls volunteering to assist in the preparations, Eleanor was far more accustomed to interacting with men than she was with domestic women. If she had talked china, lace and silk in the past, Eleanor had done so from a practical business view. While she had grown accustomed to wearing silk and drink tea, she saw no point in discussing the experience. But her fears were allayed, for Mrs. Soames and Mrs. Rawls were far more sensible women than she had first supposed.

“My father was against me going,” said Mrs. Soames, ten years the junior of her husband. “A barbarous, brutal place, he called it here.” She put down her tea cup. “But what wife would I be, if I lived half a world away, I said. And how could England rely solely on men to establish society and civilization in … an exotic world as this, without the support of their wives and a feminine touch? Besides, men can be so stubborn in their tunnel vision at times, they need a woman to make them snap out of it.”

They were active, practical women, and in hindsight that should not have surprised her so much. Women choosing to travel and settle here, when all was so uncertain, had to have some adventurous spirit themselves. But then a mortifying realization dawned on them all once they started to create a list of dances.

“I have heard it say that Mr. Rogers is a fine dancer,” said Mrs. Soames. She smirked at Mrs. Rawls. “And we can all safely presume who will reserve the first two dances for himself.” Both women looked at her, from head to toe.

Eleanor grew uncomfortable. “Do you mean the governor means to dance with me?” And before the women could answer her, she said, “That’s impossible! I cannot dance. I’ve never even been to a ball.”

Mrs. Rawls looked aghast. “Oh, my dear, surely you had dancing lessons when younger?”

“My mother taught me steps while playing the harpsichord, yes. But I never actually danced with a partner, and well, whatever training I had is over a dozen years ago.”

“Oh my!” cried Mrs. Soames. “We have a rusty debutante.” She shook her head.” Yes, of course he means to stand up with you, my dear. And as he has you organize it, you will have to open the first dance.”

“Open it?” Eleanor cried in a panic. Even if she had never been to a ball, she knew enough about it that opening the first dance meant she would have to dance all by herself with Woodes with everyone looking onto her.

While Mrs. Rawls looked miserable, Mrs. Soames burst out in laughter. “Marvelous! Delicious! We shall have to practice from morning until evening for the next two days.” She got up from her seat and opened the door of Eleanor’s apartments. “You.” She pointed to one of the guards posted in front of her door since the riot. “Fetch me that dashing young liaison of the governor. That Mr. Perkins. We are in high need of his assistance, at once.”

Perkins entered a short while later all dignity and servility until he learned what he was tasked to do. He turned red as a raspberry. He nearly choked on his words. “Me? As Miss Guthrie’s dancing partner?”

While Eleanor was quite willing to release him from any such duty and opened her mouth to tell him so, Mrs. Soames was having none of it. “You are here all day strutting about downstairs anyway delivering messages. The governor can have someone else do that too and spare you, I’m sure. Miss Guthrie tells us she was taught well enough in the art of dancing, but she is years out of practice.” She put her head to the side. “Or do you wish your lord to open the ball with a rusty dancer?”  

And so, the practicing began. Two days could not salvage all the years of failed training, so soon enough they focused on practicing two dances over and over – the minuet and a reel. The rest of the list of dances the musicians had to practice were made up of the easier country dances.  For the time being, Nassau town and beach had remained quiet. There had been no further incidents. But the quiet seemed more brooding than it was a sign of peace. The number of men that lived on the beach had decreased significantly. Where they had gone, nobody knew, but everybody suspected. Khar’s murderer had not yet been sighted either. And the closer the time of the ball neared, the more Eleanor felt that something would go horribly amiss that evening and wondered what Woodes had been thinking of when he decided to organize such an event. It was invitation only and curfew was otherwise still in place, but as the event was the talk of town surely word must have gotten out to the rebels.

 _Or perhaps it is only just imagination and anxiety over my role at the ball_ , Eleanor thought as she stared in the mirror while Mrs. Hudson took care of the last finishing touches. The dress was a cream silk with fine golden embroidery. Her blonde hair had been lifted and pinned to the top, except for tresses in the front and the rest of her lifted curls falling free. On the top of her drawer lay a small box that Woodes had delivered earlier, with a note - your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold, studded with silver. She opened the box and took out one of the pair of golden earrings with a small ruby in each. Eleanor stared apprehensively at the needle that Mrs. Hudson heated in the flame.

her to wear these tonight. It contained a pair of golden earrings with a small ruby in each. Eleanor took one of them out and stared apprehensively at the needle that Mrs. Hudson heated in the flame.

“It is a part of your dowry,” said Mrs. Hudson. She turned and gently took Eleanor’s earlobe. “This will sting,” said the chambermaid, after she pushed the hot needle through. Eleanor’s mind registered the sharp pain several heartbeats after it was done. Having the earring being pulled through after the needle hurt more, but less sharply. She braced herself for the repeated procedure on her other ear.

When it was all done, Eleanor noticed a tiny droplet of blood on the ridge of her bodice.  “Oh, the dress is ruined.”

Mrs. Hudson smiled. “It’s supposed to be there. A reminder of what is to follow when you are married.”

“Oh,” said Eleanor, finally grasping why only betrothed or married women were supposed to wear earrings. She straightened her face to suppress a bubble of laughter when she considered herself being socially presented as a virgin at twenty five, as she donned on the white gloves. But when she came down the stairs to the assembly hall and noticed Woodes below, waiting, she suddenly felt as nervous as a virgin.

Woodes eyes widened and the corners of his mouth lifted. He extended his elbow to her. “Ready for this?”

 _As ready as I’ll ever be_ , she thought. Eleanor nodded, unable to speak, and let him lead her to the hallway where she would have to receive the guests.

Just before the doors opened, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You take my breath away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: the prologue is the day after the epilogue of Queen of Thieves. In this chapter I offer an account of the week following the return of Chamberlain. Charles Vane is removed frm the gibbet the day after the prologue. Khar is found dead four days after Chamberlain's return. Eleanor is attacked on the beach the next day. And three days later the ball is held. So, the chapters covers 8 days. The first chapters will cover the period between S3 and S4. We were given snippets of information of what occurred on the island, and this I expand on. 
> 
> Eleanor's transformation into that of a recluse: Eleanor starting to embroider and sit with women would not have occurred overnight. And while I introduce Woodes' main reason for it in the epilogue of Queen of Thieves fanfic - pushing her out of hte limelight for her protection - I wanted to be realistic with Eleanor's acceptance of it. She's not a woman to be easily cowed, and she learns more by experience than pure reasoning. Billy certainly would also use the momentum to step up the threats, test boundaries and incite the anger towards Eleanor first. Woodes' idea of pushing her to the background works for the English and in some respect the merchants of Nassau, but not the rebels and pool of pirates that may turn rebel. 
> 
> Rogers' guilt: I covered this in Queen of Thieves. It has to do with Woodes Rogers having been the man off-screen behind the orders of Captain Hume to arrest Richard Guthrie and Captain Flint, to cripple illegal commerce and take away the strategist. These S1 arrests are the kick-off of choices and events in Eleanor's story that led to Hornigold capturing her and her trial in London. Eleanor has not yet figured this out and Woodes is not eager to tell it. 
> 
> The earrings: the line in the note that comes with the box of earrings is cited from Song of Songs of the Bible. Miranda cites lines from Song of Songs as well to Pastor Lambrick in S1.
> 
> The ball: I can assure you this will be a ball that leads to cloak and dagger style events. Initially I was just going to do a tea party or a dinner, but it seemed too tame. So, I'm going with the English attitude of "the band plays on" while the Titanic sinks. And after all it is the classical social event to introduce a woman into society.


	3. The Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max goes to the ball with Idelle and Featherstone. Seeing Eleanor with Rogers affects her and disturbs her. Chamberlain is also disturbed and puts a damper on the festivities. Captain Berringer captures a murderer and rebels. (Max POV only)

Max tapped her invitation card. She did not know what to think of this ball, though she greatly appreciated the large order to provide ale, rum and wine. With the curfew, Max had to close the tavern during the dark hours. Her loss of revenue was partially compensated by throwing the doors open of her brothel before sunset. Men sought it out to drink after dark and wait their turn with her girls. And she had several rooms laid out with mattresses across the floor for men to sleep on for a fee, ever since sleeping in a tent on the beach after dark was considered a breach against curfew. But every night two or three men less requested for a place to sleep. At least twenty men had abandoned the beach to join the resistance. It was still a small group, but it had to be prevented from going any further.

Her boy ran into the bar and whispered in her ear. Esther had left the safety of the brothel and went to one of the abandoned beach huts. It was to be expected that Robb the Robber would regard the night of the ball to be a safe time to meet with his love. _The fool_ , she thought. It was decided then. She would go to this ball. At such a social event, where people were required to talk while dancing, it would rouse the least suspicion if she revealed Robb’s whereabouts to Rogers then.

Exasperated about Fetherstone, Idelle exclaimed, “I’ve never been to a ball before!”

Max looked up from her books. “None of us have.”

“But Augie crumpled his invitation and does not want to go!”

Max squinted at Idelle. “Why not?”

“He says he needs to check the books again and recount the stock.”

 _He’s lying_ , she knew. Max felt the pit of her stomach churn. _The rebels are up to something._ The night of the ball would be a perfect opportunity to strike somewhere else in Nassau. Only a fool would believe the rebels had not learned of the ball. _And Rogers is no fool._ _He did not have this ball organized only to soothe Nassau. He intends to lure the rebels into a trap._ Max was still livid over Featherstone’s betrayal and she knew she had to let him walk right into whatever snare the governor had set up. It would serve him right. And yet, she could not find it in her heart to have either Idelle or Featherstone arrested, especially not since the riot had been brutally repelled by this Captain Berringer. 

“I will have a word with Mr. Featherstone. Pick out your finest dress, Idelle. You two are coming to the ball.” And so, Max told Featherstone he would be cruel to deprive Idelle of an experience of a lifetime, only because he suddenly felt it a high priority to count the storages for a second time.

The English and Nassau were dressed in their finest as they filed to enter the governor’s mansion. Max caught her first glimpse of Eleanor from outside. All in white and fine golden thread Eleanor shone like a star. It was not just that she reflected the rich candlelight of the many candelabras that had been set up in the hallway, but seemed to radiate light herself, as she smiled, greeted and extended her hand to the guests.

“Who does she think she is, Virgin Queen Mary?” whispered Idelle annoyed. “She won’t fool anyone with that act.”

But was it an act? Eleanor was no virgin, let alone a saint. Nevertheless, whenever Max saw her, Eleanor appeared transformed into someone more innocent and better than the day before. The governor stood out as a sleek, dark and handsome king in military attire. Once in a while, before the next guest shook his hand he said something inaudible to Eleanor, making her blush or glance at him with a light in her eyes only reserved for him. _The prince found his brushed up Cinderella_. As Max stepped up to the pair, she felt as if she walked into a fantasy bubble that had popped into existence out of thin air. _This has to be an illusion_ , Max thought. _It cannot be real._ And yet she also felt she wanted something for herself like that too.

Eleanor’s eyes lit up and she smiled while she took Max’s hand. “You are most welcome, Max.”

Max’s conflicted emotions of envy were blown away by Eleanor’s inclusion. But then Rogers lifted her fingers and greeted her quite businesslike as he was wont to do. _Whatever charm this prince has, he reserves it for Eleanor only._ And despite Idelle’s earlier turned up nose, Eleanor greeted Idelle almost as warmly as she had Max, dazzling even Idelle. Max’s sensation of being exclusively included into their inner circle of happiness evaporated. It just was not fair for those two to be in love and feel united, when Anne would forever be her enemy, Charles Vane had lost his life and rebel pirates murdered each other. At some level, Max knew she was being spiteful and petty. But she could not dispel her feelings about it that easily. _If only they never had come._

Inside the assembly hall, Idelle stared stunned at all the chandeliers, mirrors and candles that turned the large room into a festively lit ballroom. Featherstone dragged his feet along. “We should go,” he muttered. “We don’t belong with these people.”

“Nonsense,” Max said instantly. She indicated her head to Mrs. Soames. “Her grandfather was no more than a tailor once. And Mrs. Rawls is the daughter of a clerk.” She leaned even closer. “And they say that Mrs. Blight was his servant before he became a widower. None of them are better than us.” She smiled at them. “So drink, eat, dance and enjoy yourselves. The governor is paying for it.”

“I don’t know how to dance,” protested Featherstone.

“There are card tables too, in the west room,” said Max. Idelle looked miserably to the door of the game room, until Major Richards passed by and stopped to greet Max. She introduced Featherstone and Idelle to him.

“Enchanted, Miss Idelle,” the major said to Idelle’s bosom. “If you are not otherwise engaged, may I be so bold to ask for the first two dances.”

“Oh, yes,” said Idelle, beaming.

“Great,” said Featherstone relieved. “I’m off to the card tables then.”

Mr. Frasier invited Max to dance the first two, which she readily accepted. All the guests had arrived, the front doors were closed for the curfew and the musicians began to ready their instruments. When Rogers led Eleanor by the hand to the center of the assembly room, Mr. Frasier returned to fetch Max for the minuet. And as luck would have it, Max ended up near enough Eleanor and the governor to belong to the main four pairs who would go through the dance with each other.  Mrs. Soames stood to her left and Eleanor to her right. Meanwhile, Idelle danced in the back of the line with Major Richards, as far away from Max as was convenient to her.

“I’m nervous,” whispered Eleanor.

“You’ll do fine,” said Max.

“I meant the future, Max. The type of life I’ll be leading. The struggles ahead.”

Not knowing what to respond, Max flicked her eyes to Rogers standing across of Eleanor. He only had eyes for Eleanor, unfathomable blue. Eleanor gazed back at him, her eyes wide as a the sea. The first tones of Purcell’s minuet of Abdelazer sounded, the men bowed and the women curtsied. Then Rogers and Eleanor stepped to each other, their palms up, touching hands, turning a circle in perfect synchronization, round, step, round, step, made a turn and moved up the line. In that moment, Max could not say which of the two drew the other in, which of them led, who followed. Instead both seemed to pull each other in with equal might and evident yearning, and rather than doubling the attraction, it magnified exponentially.

Up stepped Mr. Frasier towards Max, and they repeated the lead couple’s movements, until eventually everyone had fallen in step, towards the front, as if they were all being sucked into a dance tornado that originated from the joining of Rogers and Eleanor. Halfway the dance there was a cross and Max circled round with the governor.

He smiled at her. “You dance very well, Max. Where did you learn?”

“My father, a landowner in Haïti, regularly organized balls at his home, my lord.” Though Max refrained from telling him that she had only seen it through the window, just like she watched her half-sister during her dancing lessons. Max had trained the steps all by herself.

“You would grace any ballroom.”

When next they cross-partnered, Max said to him in a low voice, “Esther left for a beach hut before curfew to see her lover, my lord. You may want to send a patrol there to do more than a scanning of the tents.”

“Thank you,” he said with some warmth, but continued in a tone of warning, “I will have to arrest your girl too for breaking curfew.”

Max rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well, she is foolish. I will not interfere with the law. A night in a cell might do her some good.” Esther had betrayed her in the past to Mrs. Mapleton when she had gotten the lead on the Urca gold. The girl’s lesson was long overdue.

Into the second dance they moved, a hornpipe, and Mrs. Soames said to Max as they awaited their turn in the dance line, “Don’t they look well together?”

Reluctantly, Max said, “They do.”

“Mr. Soames thought it an outrage when first he heard the rumors. But I told him our governor had been faithful longer to his dead marriage than my Mr. Soames mourned the death of his first beloved wife. In fact, I am of the opinion that a second marriage is often a far happier one than a first. So, often the first are either formed out of loveless ambition or folly. When people are young and in love, they often end up frustrated when their partner does not live up to the fantasy, or worse devastated when the other does not bend to their will. A second love is far more mature, more willing to forgive one another’s faults, far more gentle in dealing with their partner’s defects, and yet no less passionate. And I said to Mr. Soames that if such a love can be found in the union of a former pirate as Miss Guthrie and an entrepreneur as our governor, then it speaks volumes of the possibilities any man can hope to achieve in a place like this.”

It was Mr. Frasier’s and Max’s turn to dance the hornpipe’s movements. As she pondered Mrs. Soames’ words, she found she could not completely negate the woman’s observations.  Eleanor had been hers and Vane’s first love. They each had assumed things of her, but Eleanor surprised them both in what she had valued more _. Maybe_ _that was why we felt betrayed by her?_ _That Eleanor was never the person we believed her to be._ _Did we deceive ourselves or did she deceive us?_

“Forgive me my impertinence, Mr. Frasier, but were you ever married?” Max asked.

“I have not yet had that fortune,” he answered.

“Have you ever loved then?”

Mr. Frasier grimaced. “I thought I did, yes. I ascribed every virtue to a pretty young face. I was wrong and am relieved she chose another, but what a sweet face she had. I’ll never forget it.”

“And you never loved another?”

This time he looked pained. “I did. We were engaged. But her ship was sunk in a storm on its way over here.” His face grew softer. “She may not have been as pretty as the first, nor did I believe her virtuous. But we had an understanding. I miss her still.” And that explained why he was a notorious bachelor who never even visited the brothel for any other reason than business transactions.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Frasier.”

“So am I.”

She became silent again, pondering her love for Anne. _I knew at some point that she would never choose me over Jack and I did not fight it, nor resented her for it. Why could I see that with Anne, but not Eleanor? Did I love Anne less?_ Max did not think so. But it was different, less selfish and yet connecting at a deeper level. _More mature?_ She looked at Eleanor and Rogers slightly differently then. Mrs. Mapleton’s words had made clear to her that she was never Eleanor’s second love, after Charles. But the governor certainly seemed to fall in such a category. Max had heard accounts about Rogers’ wife - a strong-willed, beautiful woman of a respectable family that he had married quite young – and how the two had been alienated from each other for several years. Sarah Whetstone would have been the governor’s first love, while Max had seen with her own eyes how the governor fell for Eleanor, despite her swearing, cursing and less refined ways, her lack of family connections and owning nothing more than the clothes he gave her.

Eventually, the first two dances had come to an end and Mr. Frasier escorted her of the dance floor, where she met with Idelle who was promptly invited by a lieutenant of the navy for the next two. Her eyes followed Rogers who escorted Eleanor away from the dance floor. Despite Mrs. Soames’ words, Max was not convinced that either of them were free from illusions about one another. Eleanor seemed to think Woodes Rogers was noble in character, a man of impeccable forbearance and humanity. But Eleanor had not seen Rogers on the beach the day of the riot, had not witnessed the brutality with which Captain Berringer had arrested some of the troublemakers. Eleanor had not seen how the governor’s cold, hard face did not flinch at the manhandling of Captain Lillywhite. Meanwhile Rogers seemed bent on polishing Eleanor to become the image of his London wife. _But how much does he know of her past, of her wild nature?_ Evidently, he was unaware of the sexual affair between Eleanor and herself. _Does he know Eleanor sent assassins to kill Jack Rackham and Mr. Featherstone?_

However, Max feared that if the love between these two was based on an illusion, the natural destructive behavior that would follow from it would not be directed at one another, as it had between Charles and Eleanor, but to everyone else. And perhaps for the first time Max began to comprehend what the main motive might have been for Eleanor to hang Charles and keep the gibbet for so long. _She did it to keep the governor’s hands clean from it and not hide what she did._ Max started to wonder what Rogers would do to protect Eleanor in return.

Max wandered off into the salon looking out over the garden. The terrace doors were open, the air pregnant with the smell of overripe mango mixed with tobacco. Commodore Chamberlain stood outside smoking a cigar. After the repairs done to the HMS _Milford_ and HMS _Rose_ , the commodore had patrolled around the island and the near seas to keep a commercial path clear to Port Royal. Max stepped outside. “Congratulations, Commodore, with your victory over the _Orion_. Nassau needed such glad tidings.”

The Commodore had crossed paths with the ship the pirates had captured in the battle of the Maroon Island as it tried to hunt a merchant ship. The _Orion’s_ pirate captain must not have been an experienced man, for he had been easily overrun and the ship sunken. The few survivors had been taken back to Fort Nassau as prisoners, to be tried and hanged.

“Thank you,” he said disinterested. He remained silent for a while and looked at Max askance as if he tried to signal her, “Are you still here?” But then he turned around and gazed through the windows of the assembly hall. Max followed his eyes to his point of interest - Eleanor dancing with Lieutenant Perkins. He sniffed his nose. Whatever middle ground Eleanor and the commodore had reached during the governor’s illness had all but evaporated after Chamberlain’s loss against Flint at the maroon island. It was well known in Nassau that the commodore blamed Eleanor’s manning decisions. If anything, that knowledge had emboldened the rioters to attack Eleanor three days before, during Chamberlain’s absence. “I heard it mentioned that the governor divorced his wife and intends to marry _her_.”

“Yes.”

“It is a disgrace,” the aristocratic man said. “Ma’m,” he inclined his head, threw his cigar down and crushed it under his heel. He left Max standing by herself as he walked back inside.

Max trailed behind, and when she entered the assembly hall, Chamberlain had already stepped up to Rogers and berated him, in a hushed voice initially, but speaking louder over time. Rogers’ face hardened and he gave short angry replies. Then Chamberlain shouted, “This is an abomination! To go against God and set aside your wife, the daughter of a knight, for this… this … thieving miscreant of no birth whatsoever.”

The music had died out. The whole room turned their attention at the disagreement. Lieutenant Perkins and the other dancers had stepped away and Eleanor stood forlorn in the middle of the room. “You will retract your words said in haste and under influence, Commodore,” said Rogers coolly.

“I will not.”

 “Then I will make good on your daring, sir, whatever you dare, whenever. You will do right by me, sir, or I will protest your cowardice as you so easily insult a sweet lady to cover your own ineptitude in battle.”

Everyone fell silent. In spite of its compression, gentlemanly, quite precise, Rogers’ challenge at the commodore’s feet, though polite, was clear as ice. Strictly speaking, Chamberlain was of higher birth than the governor and could have excused himself on that account. And yet, he was not higher in legal stature, challenged to a duel in front of a room full of people who cared not about the commodore’s noble birth. Chamberlain blanched and looked around uncertainly, until he puffed up his chest and said with pursed lips, quite automatic, “Well then, my lord, you will hear from me on the time, place and conditions before the night is done. At any time I will be prepared.”

While Chamberlain left the assembly room into the hallway, Eleanor rushed to Rogers in a panic. But Rogers warded her off with a raised hand and disappeared into the card game room. Before Eleanor could go after him, both Max and Mrs. Soames held her back simultaneously. “You should stay out of this,” said Max. They marched her into the salon and waved everybody else out and the music started up again in the assembly room.

“Let Chamberlain insult me,” Eleanor argued to them. “What do I care? He has insulted me since the first time I set foot on the _Delicia_. If it had been up to him, I would have been stuck in the hold for two months.”

“Hush, Miss Guthrie,” said Mrs. Soames. “You are to be his wife now, not his convict threatened to be sent back to London to be hanged if she refused to cooperate.” The allusions to Eleanor’s voyage and circumstances piqued Max’s interest. Eleanor had never said anything about it, other than the fact she had to name names. For some reason, Max had always envisioned it as an easy voyage of calm waters that Eleanor navigated smoothly. That it had been a battle against opinions with the threat of a noose looming, even with Rogers, was not how Max had envisioned it. Max had felt that threat herself only for less than a fortnight. It softened her feelings towards Eleanor. _Perhaps Eleanor has good reasons to seek securities._

“But he lay at death’s door less than a fortnight ago with a fever,” said Eleanor. “This is folly.”

“He cannot let such a public insult stand by a man who has argued against him on several occasions before,” said Mrs. Soames. “Their general disagreement has built over time, and reached its limit. In fact, I have it from Mr. Soames that the more conservative of the Admiralty were not in favor of Mr. Rogers’ appointment and ideas. They appointed the commodore to keep the governor in check and prevent him from turning radically progressive. The commodore had every intention to undo our lord’s aim with this ball.”

“But it’s not worth dying over!”

Max blew out a sigh of air. “Don’t be so dramatic, Eleanor. Not every duel is fought to the death. And this I know, when men are about their business of honor, especially the lady in question should stay out of it.”

Then a whole other ruckus was heard outside the mansion and the doors crashed open. As Max, Eleanor and Mrs. Soames stepped into the hallway, everybody else at the ball gathered there as well to see what was going on. Captain Berringer stomped inside, while behind him stood over fifty redcoats with captives on the square. Robb the Robber was thrown on his face onto the steps of the mansion. The governor came forward and the guests parted to let him through. A corner of his mouth turned upwards.

“This one, my lord,” said Berringer, “has been accused of murdering Khar. We found him hiding in a beach hut during patrol.” Eight more men on their knees were held under gunpoint. “And these attempted to plunder an ammunition storage. They are all rebels.”

Max did not see any of Flint’s men amongst them. They were men from Nassau, who had accepted the pardons and only joined the rebels over the past few days. Idelle joined Max’s side, her hand before her mouth in shock, while Featherstone silently stared at the captured men white as a sheet. Max squinted at him. _You were supposed to be there, weren’t you? And you would have been caught just like them._ _I guarded you from making that mistake._

 “Good. Very good, captain,” said Rogers and the captain gleamed in pride. “Please have them escorted to the fort.” He turned around and looked at his guests. “I think we all may have had enough excitement for the night. Captain, could you please spare some men to see my guests home safely?” He stopped in front of Max and Eleanor and bowed his head first to Max and then to Eleanor, holding his hand out to her. “My lady?”

Eyes wide, Eleanor gave her hand to him and let him escort her back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The duel challenge - Rogers paraphrases Benedick challenging Claudio in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The paragraph right after the challenge is rife with allusions to "Eugene Onegin", a novel in verse by Pushkin where the plot majorly centres around a duel, which comes about after ungentlemanlike from Onegin behavior during a ball, concerning the betrothed of his friend, the poet Lensky. A part of the challenge revolves around the seconding man of Lensky not giving Onegin the chance to repent and apologize and therefore avoid the duel. When Rogers makes such a public challenge after the first refusal by Chamberlain to take back his words, not using a second at all, he too forces Chamberlain in accepting, rather than apologize. 
> 
> Chamberlain/Berringer - while Billy says that the commodore took the fleet with him to England shortly after the Maroon Battle the ships would have needed repairs and soldiers needed healing. So, I have kept him in or near Nassau for the moment to build and expand on the conflict between Rogers and him that spikes up in S3, before he will leave, while simultaneously showing how Berringer acquires a position that might enable him to lead a mutiny amongst the regulars (redcoats). 
> 
> Max POV - this is the first time I have an only Max POV chapter, and chose to use it especially during the ball, so that the ball is atypically described in a skeptical way and make it more sinister, far more befitting a pirate show like Black Sails, especially in light of season 4. I did not want to make it a Jane Austen ball. Although of course we can imagine that's how it feels to Eleanor certainly at the start.
> 
> Allusions to an illusion - in the comments of Queen of Thieves I explained how Max can be seen to fulfill the role of Orual, Psyche's sister, who tries to tell Psyche she's being bedazzled by the illusion that a deceiver created and how it's not real, leading to Psyche's exile and downfall, and eventually Orual hearing the Psyche and Cupid legend being told with her as an evil sister who was jealous and envious of her sister, but in truth wanted to protect Psyche and was envious of Cupid getting to enjoy Psyche's company instead of her (see Until We Have Faces). So the bubble of fantasy, wanting to be included, but feeling excluded, and her doubts about the consequences of the love between these two allude to this. And in a way the ball is a bedazzling illusion by Rogers to lure some rebels into Nassau at night, have them captured and cowing Nassau.


	4. The Duelists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogers seeks a second for his duel with Chamberlain. While Rogers manages to get his satsifaction, he ends up losing a fleet. But in the process he gains some very loyal allies. (Rogers only POV)

“I’m sorry, my lord, but please do not ask me to be your second,” said Perkins. “The commodore is my superior and you are my lord.”

Looking out onto the square that bathed in sunlight, Rogers sighed. “A second’s responsibility is to persuade the principals in finding satisfaction in the least harmful manner.” He turned around. Perkins made no reply and just stared ahead of him into empty air. Rogers nodded. “Fine, lieutenant. I will not press the matter any further. I understand.”

Perkins inclined his head. “Thank you, my lord. Do you require anything else?”

“Prepare an escort for the fort.”

Storm season was long past and with the onset of the dry season, the leaves of the deciduous trees and shrubs began to turn color. The drop in humidity did not make it colder though. The rivulet of brackish water that entered the bay was only a trickle of what it was before. He crossed it easily. It stank of dried sewage and dried fish that had failed to swim upstream with the onset of the draught. Three young pups of non descript race came to sniff his boots as he passed and padded after him in the hope of being given a scrap. One was as black as the night. The other had a russet coat and the third had the color of sand. When he entered the strengthened new gate of the fortress he told the one-eyed guard there to find some leftovers for the pups. “They’re young still. Might be, you could train them as watch dogs. With this many prisoners, the rebels might try to set up some escape plan. Dogs sniff and hear intruders before a man can.”

“It will be done, my lord.”

Captain Berringer appeared in the yard. “My lord?”

“Have any of yesterday’s captives talked already for better terms on their trial?”

“Only the murderer, sir. He confessed to his crime and gave names of his former crew who are considering to defect.”

Rogers stumped his boot against a loose rock. “Not much useful then, so far.”

“The rioters arrested four days ago know nothing. The thieves claim it was all their own idea. And the commodore’s captives of the _Orion_ simply keep their mouths shut.”

“I want the names of those who organize the rebellion. I want to know where they have their head quarter. And I want to know the exact location of the cache with the maroons.” Rogers met the captain’s eyes. “Can you see to that?”

Captain Berringer nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He knew he could have asked all of that in his own office. But Rogers needed the air, some activity, and be away from Eleanor. She was like a constant buzzing presence in the pit of his stomach, whether she was with him or not. He woke with that feeling and fell asleep with it, like an itch. Talking to her, watching her, touching her would alleviate it seemingly, but afterwards the hankering was just worse than it had been before, obsessing him with the desire to lose himself forever in her. And that frightened him. His sense of self was becoming blurry. At times he felt like he was losing his objectivity. His challenge of the commodore had been said more hastily than his mind could form the thoughts. And while he believed he had hid his rage rather well, had kept his outward cool, within it had felt blindingly white hot like a smithy’s furnace. He was almost grateful of the troubles on the island, as at least they pulled him back into reality.

“You seem troubled, my lord,” the captain said.

“Beg pardon?”

“I have heard that a problem has arisen between yourself and the commodore, last night, of a more personal nature.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I may be of assistance?”

Rogers sized up the captain. He was not a boy like Perkins with untested principals, but a rougher sort – a son of genteel small land owners, who had worked his way up as an officer doing what needed to be done, regardless of the law, the church’s doctrine or society. He might do better as a second. To be fair, Rogers trusted his manservant Dyson more, but the commodore would be outraged if Dyson was his second. If Rogers made a common servant his second, any negotiations would fail and they would have to fight each other to the death. While he had been angry enough last night to stick his smallsword through Chamberlain’s throat to shut him up, Rogers had cooled down enough to realize he would be satisfied with less. Eleanor had done that. At first he had been resolved in avoiding her entirely after he challenged Chamberlain, sure his anger would turn onto her if she tried to prevent him from satisfying his honor. But seeing the care and worry in her eyes as he sent everyone home had blown that out of the water. She had not said one word about it though, as he led her by the hand back inside. Instead, she had said, “I have trained so hard on my dancing the past few days and I saved the last ones for you. What a pity it would have been all for nothing.”

That had brought a smile to his lips. “Which dance would you have of me?”

She had whispered it into his ear and he asked the musicians to play a country dance for half an hour more. They were paid for anyway. Her dancing was far from perfect - rusty, inexperienced and she made several mistakes. And yet Eleanor danced without the conceit or guile of the far better skilled partners he danced with in London or Bristol. She skipped and tripped light as a feather, carefree and gay, and beamed with giddiness. They had not talked at all. There had been no need for it. He was at peace with the world then. When the dance was done, he led her by the hand up the stairs, and bid her adieu with a hand kiss on the landing.

Her eyes had been full of emotion and she had stroked his scar. “The first time I was in your company, I wondered whether you had gotten your scar in a duel.” Before anything could come of that gentle, soothing touch, she had said, “Thank you,” kissed him on the cheek and turned away.

His mind had been too hurly-burly by her tendresse that he had forgotten to ask her, “What for?” or to answer, “I never dueled a man in single sword combat before.” Head hanging he ambled into his room, his rage long dead, stolen away by her playfulness of soul. Instead it was replaced by irresolution and regret.  _What did I do? Surely, Chamberlain had better fencing masters than I. Should I risk everything for an absurd slight?_

But tossing and turning in his bed that night, he brooded on all the memories of the beloved innocent sight. It was not just his honor that needed saving, but Eleanor’s. Unfortunately, Rogers had a long memory and he recalled every insult and degrading remark that Chamberlain had ever made about Eleanor within his earshot. The poisonous, despicable worm could not be allowed to attack his rose root, or make her recent blooming into society fade. All it meant was that he had a date for swapping swords with inevitable fate.

“Sir?” Berringer’s rough voice interrupted Rogers’ reveries.

“Yes, I find myself in need of a second. Will you be my man?”

“It would be my honor.”

 Once that was settled, Mr. Soames awaited him in his office. Apparently, Chamberlain had chosen him to be his second man. Small swords it would be, the next day, at dawn. And the chosen field of honor was to be a small uninhabited island, barely a cove, so neither man would break the King’s law on English soil. Rogers referred Mr. Soames to Berringer for any further arrangements and later learned that Mr. Soames had argued for first blood, while Berringer called such a cowardly farce. The two had settled on incapacitation that Commodore Chamberlain could avoid by offering a formal apology.  

Incapacitation meant both could come away from this with their lives, but a badly placed poking hole could still be fatal. Distracted, Rogers sat down for tea in the salon with knitted forehead. He talked some, was silent more, once laughed and then frowned. The tinkling of the spoons in the tea-cups sounded like music of life while the finery of the china reminded him of the fragility of life. He put it carefully down, without barely having sipped the tea, and strummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Instead, he drank the vision of Eleanor’s face, while she tried to be brave and talked prisoner business - when and where the trials would be held. She fell silent and let out a sigh, ambling to the window and leaning her head against the glass as her eyes wandered across the garden. _My lily of the vale. My bride._

“I think I am happy,” he whispered unheard. “I love you,” he ad-libbed unseen. In that moment, with an aching heart shrinking of the fight, Rogers was convinced he could be satisfied with no more than a mere nick of Chamberlain’s skin. But the hour was too late and nothing more to be done. “I have to go,” he said, and parting with Eleanor he felt torn in half and was sure his heart would break.

She turned to face him, her eyes wide blue pools, questioning, worried, hurt, like a wounded dove. “But …”

 _I love you._ And away he flew. Upstairs, he brought his sword out of its scabbard. Carefully, he balanced it on his fingers. He sat down at his desk, took out a whetstone from a drawer, and slowly sharpened its point, as the sun set behind him. When that was done, he took two books from his library. One contained the works of Shakespeare, and it fell open on _Hamlet_ , the tragic prince who questioned what it was what made him a man. So consumed with the need to avenge his father’s murder he drove Ophelia to suicide. Rogers closed the book. Hamlet was too dark, too brooding and of no help to him tonight. Then he picked up the bible, looking through the psalms for something for his hour of need. He flipped through them quickly, but his fingers and eyes halted on the paper he had left in between the pages at the _Song of Songs_ , from which he had borrowed the line to write his note accompanying Eleanor’s earrings. He hesitated, and then opened the bible to read it. It had but been some poetic fancy when he copied a line only yesterday, but now he read it in earnest. Whenever sermons mentioned it in church they only spoke of it as an allegory of God’s union with the people of Israel. And yet, in its simplest form it was a poem about the love and marriage between a man and a woman who were soulmates. The _he_ spoke Rogers’ heart. The _she_ had Eleanor’s voice. This was no amorous trash, but words that reverberated. Eleanor was there. Every line recalled a vision, a scent, a sigh. He saw her vulnerable in naked beauty, so close at hand. The remembered sounds became moans and groans in lyric frenzy, as he sunk into her ethereal presence like a devouring drunk. And Chamberlain had slandered such godsend.

His bed embraced him, and his head rested in slumber. _Tomorrow will be tomorrow. Thief of my heart, be at my side and shine your star upon me at dawn, beloved friend, my bride._ He merely dozed away, muttering, “ideal …”

Just as actual oblivion of sleep was upon him, in a hush, Captain Berringer entered and woke him. “My lord, it is time. It’s gone five. We’ll have to hurry if we wish to make it at six.”

There was not much time, except to throw a fresh shirt on, splash water in his face, grab his coat and hat, while he pointed out his sword to Berringer to take along. Aside from Captain Berringer, only Dyson and Dr. Marcus embarked with him. The doctor shook his head slightly in disapproval. Rogers understood. With care and effort he had nursed the governor back to the living and twelve days later Rogers was about to throw it all away. In the silence and darkness, Dyson rowed to get them underway, until the small sail could do the rest of the work. They carried lanterns that threw a yellow, ghostly light on the brooding dark waters. In the distance, Rogers saw bobbing halos. _That has to be Chamberlain._

On the very brink of the horizon the pitch black sky twinkling with thousand of stars gradually lightened to a blue. They landed when the yet unseen, but climbing sun had driven off the shades of the night and the sky was half a light blue and pink sheen. They jumped out of the boats into the surf. The island was nothing more than a stretch of sand and grassy knolls. Hardly a shrub grew on it even.

“Good morning,” said Mr. Soames.

“Good morning,” replied Captain Berringer. “Are you ready gentlemen?”

Mr. Soames looked startled at the eagerness. He shrugged. “As good as we ever will.”

He led them to the square of twenty paces he had marked out in the sand already. Captain Berringer gave Rogers’ sword to Mr. Soames for inspection and tested the evenness of the field of honor. Dyson helped Rogers out of his coat and Mr. Soames returned the small sword into Berringer’s hands. Rogers reached for it. In silence, Rogers lunged at the cool air, swiped the air in half, warming himself up for the fight. And in all that time, neither Rogers nor Chamberlain greeted one another or made even any eye contact. Though the sun had not yet peeked across the horizon, the light was clear as a sunless day.

“Alright, gentlemen,” said Berringer, and Rogers and his foe casually stepped towards the outlined square, gleaming swords swinging.

The foes faced one another, saluted, put their left arm up in the air and raised their swords in the engaging guard. For a while the swords seemed to entrance each other like snakeheads. Chamberlain made the first move, turning his sword around Rogers’ so his inside guard was positioned outside. Rogers turned his wrist into tierce to defend his outside. Chamberlain moved forward, pressed Rogers back, quickly hit Rogers’ sword to unbalance it and move into his lunge. But Rogers recovered, went on the inside, parried the attack and deflected Chamberlain’s sword, just slightly too late. Chamberlain’s swordpoint grazed his shoulder.

“A hit,” said Mr. Soames. He looked at Rogers for the word that he would end the challenge here and now.

Rogers checked the blood smear on his white shirt. Chamberlain sniffed at him arrogantly when their eyes met. “En guard,” said Rogers and raised his sword into high quart guard to re-engage Chamberlain.

The commodore’s blue eyes lit up in annoyance. Once again the points circled around one another, shifted with each change of guard. Chamberlain chose the offense once more, lunged heavily at Rogers, but Rogers’ parries were far more even handed and steady than the first time. He riposted, forcing Chamberlain to parry and thrust too much on the inside. Rogers dropped on his left knee and hand to avoid the lunge, stretched his right arm high above him, and thrust the point into Chamberlain’s unprotected torso.

Chamberlain staggered and grit his teeth to numb the cry. Rogers stood and raised his sword into the engaging guard, while Chamberlain turned his back on him and took several steps with his hand on his chest. Not sure enough how badly Rogers had wounded him, he wanted to be ready if Chamberlain was only feigning,  turned and attacked once more. But Chamberlain stepped outside the field of honor, dropped his sword and sagged down on his knees. His doctor and Mr. Soames rushed to the commodore, while Rogers picked up Chamberlain’s sword and gave it to his second.

They turned Chamberlain on his back and the blood on his shirt spread from his armpit to his right upper chest. Rogers let out a sigh. Bloody, but not deadly. Chamberlain’s eyes were wide in fear though and his breathing rapid and shallow, as the doctor opened his shirt and dressed the wound. Low voiced, Mr. Soames talked into Chamberlain. Rogers distanced himself from the scene, joined Berringer and Dyson and awaited the doctor’s decision.

Mr. Soames stepped forward. Berringer walked up to him and the two seconds parlayed for a moment. Rogers raised his eyebrows in demand, when Berringer returned to him. “It’s quite bad,” the captain explained.

“Can he continue?”

Berringer shook his head. “No, he’s unable to. He’s quite done for today.”

Rogers nodded.“Then I am satisfied and will shake hands with him.” He gave his sword to Berringer, stepped up to the fallen Chamberlain, who raised a trembling hand but avoided his eyes. Perhaps Rogers should have known by that limp shake of his that Chamberlain would remain a dishonorable man. But Rogers felt only relief that the duel could be settled in his favor without any loss of life. To him, the ugly business was done.

Eleanor had awaited his arrival in his office and anxiously rose from the chair when he stepped inside. He lifted his coat carefully. The weight on his scratched shoulder stung.

“You are hurt!” she cried in dismay and rushed to him.

He smiled at her. “It is only a scratch. Nothing more.”

She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. “Is it over then?”

Rogers pressed his cheek against hers. “It is. I won.”

“Is Chamberlain…?”

“He will live.”

But the next day Mr. Soames came to see him and handed him a letter from the commodore with trembling hand. Rogers tore the seal and his eyes flitted across the writing. Chamberlain explained that he only had orders to help Rogers in chasing off the pirates from Nassau. And since that had been done well over a month before, he was at liberty to sail for England, especially now that there were rumors that England and Spain were likely to be at war again, before long.

Rogers dropped the letter on his desk. “When does he intend to sail?”

“Before your marriage in four days, my lord.”

It was too soon. Much too soon. He flung every expletive in his mind at Chamberlain and wished he could allow Eleanor to rail against him. She was far better at it than him. His duel now seemed a trifle attempt to chastise a man who was unworthy. _Did it amplify the coward’s nature and make him resort to such drastic retreat?_

“It was only a matter of time, before he would go,” said Mr. Soames as if he could read Rogers’ mind.

 _He_ , thought Rogers, _not we_. Finally, Rogers took notice of Mr. Soames himself. Something was different about the man. “Why are you in civilian dress, Mr. Soames?”

“I resigned from my function in the navy, my lord. I never intended to return to London, but to take up my retirement while here. It seems this was an opportune moment for it.”

“You are staying then?”

“Yes.”

Rogers smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Soames. I would have been sorry to see you go.” At times like these, in a place like this, one could not be too picky whom to call a friend. Just as long as they were loyal.

And Mr. Soames turned out to be very loyal indeed as he drove hard negotiations to get the most out of Chamberlain needing to stock his ships with food and water. Unfortunately Major Richards felt compelled to withdraw his soldiers as well. He apologized profusely, but the most recent news from Europe convinced him that the Crown would redeploy them soon enough. However, Captain Berringer was another of those unlikely friends who had managed to convince many soldiers in refusing to go. He had rallied men with speeches inside the fort and on the beach.

“England has enough soldiers at home and other European stations. We would be just one in thousands, a drop in a bucket, who will make little to no difference. We fought and fight another war here, where every man, hand and head counts! If we leave now, our governor will be left to the merciless barbarians. If we leave now, our brothers died for nothing on the beach and forests of that god forsaken island. If we leave now, we should never even have come. The governor intends to stay. So, I will stay too. And so must you!”

Berringer’s rally cry had been heard. While most high ranking officers chose to decamp with Chamberlain, the highly needed foot soldiers refused. Before nightfall, Berringer had positioned over hundred mutineers to guard the weapon and ammunition stock to make sure Chamberlain could not load them aboard. In a night raid, they had forced the HMS _Shark_ to surrender its guns and hauled them to the fort.

It was said that Chamberlain had cursed and raged from his bed, while recovering from his wound. But the other officers, naval and regular, were not unsympathetic to Berringer’s mutineers nor the governor’s stand. Their non-action was their way of helping Nassau. And so, the day before his intended marriage, Rogers stood on the pier and watched Chamberlain sail away with the naval ships and half of the soldiers with mixed feelings. It could not be denied that he needed those ships and numbers, and he felt it as a great loss. On the other hand he felt heartened that so many saw things as he did and dared to risk the crown’s ire. Such men were worth ten of those that had sailed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fortress visit - it's a callback to Eleanor's walk to the fort in The Beast chapter of Queen of Thieves, where I allude to a visit or entering the underworld. But where Eleanor is a visitor, Rogers acts the lord, and thus becomes more akin to Hades, lord of the Underworld, lord of Death.
> 
> Eugene Onegin - I reference and allude to this verse novel by Pushkin often, starting with the memory of the ball, the tea-scene, his reveries in his office and bedroom by himself. In Pushkin's novel events at a dance, surrounding the betrothed of the poet Lensky, lead to Lensky challenging his friend Onegin into a duel. The motivations, the insult, the weapons and the outcome are different, but the passages where Lensky reflects on his fiance and his rash challenge, the process in his mind the day and night before the duel are of interest. Like Lensky, Rogers also ends up choosing a dubious second. Seconds are supposed to talk the duelists out of it all, reconcile them. The challenged Onegin breaks the duel rules often (arrives too late, chooses a servant as second, etc), in ways that gave Lensky's second the right to declare the win to Lensky before any shot was fired. Except Lensky's second is eager for this duel to take place, more than either Lensky and Onegin are, and it leads to Lensky's death. Berringer is the man who negotiates for incapacitation, which incidentally might end up being mortal. I made it ambiguous, because had Berringer allowed for "first blood" then Chamberlain would have won. With the rules that Berringer insisted upon, Rogers ends up winning. The same ambiguity continues after the duel - Chamberlain takes the naval fleet home. On the one hand this would have happened at some point, but it also increases the dislike between both men, and in that sense, the duel has the opposite result than it is supposed to have. Berringer uses it to his own advantage. He becomes the military leader with his own personal army in Nassau.
> 
> The Duelists - a reference to Ridley Scott's debut movie of 1977 with Harvey Keithel and Keith Carradine in the lead roles. The screenplay was based on a short story of Joseph Conrad, "The Duel", about two French officers who duel with each other several times across decades during the Bonaparte era. Joseph Conrad based his short story on two historical French officers who dueled each other 30 times over a span of 19 years, with different swords and pistols, different locations, on foot, mounted on horseback, etc. Rogers' final move on how he wounds Chamberlain is the same one that Harvey Keithel makes to puncture Keith Carradine in their first short sword duel (see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KWTEhyVX8&feature=youtu.be&t=2m4s), which is a realistic, albeit exotic, fencing move. Otherwise, their posture and guards in the movie scene are historically incorrect (despite Holmes being the choreographer). Short swords were the forerunner of the epee, and so it looked far more like modern day fencing, without too much heavy slashing motions (short swords can't slash, only puncture holes). So the left hand would either be up in the air beside the head or behind the back instead, and the engaging guards in the movie won't protect any part of the body. What it does very well though is depict the short and ruthless silence of a duel. The longer a fight lasts, the greater the danger you end up killed, so the fights would be quick and businesslike. I wanted that in my duel too. Hence why I wrote Rogers' mind as very poetic and melancholic in the day before, but devoid of sentiment and feeling during, as a contrast.
> 
> Historical duel: Rogers did duel a naval captain. After his illness during his 1st term, he stayed in Charleston for a while to recover. But he ended up dueling a naval captain John Hildesley of the HMS Flamborough there who had sailed into Nassau for repairs before at a time when his original naval fleet had departed one by one. The captain was a tyrant to the commandeered Nassau labourers and ignored Rogers' plea to remain to protect Nassau. Anyhow, the two men greatly disliked each other. Rogers was actually wounded in the duel, and Hildesley returned to England, giving his personal version, highly disfavouring Woodes. It is speculated that this report is partly the cause why support of Woodes ceased, another man was appointed as governor unbeknowest to Rogers, and how he landed in debtor's jail. Hence, I used this historical fact and adapted it to fit the story with Chamberlain ending up being the one that's wounded, but with such a dislike for Rogers he's going to bad-mouth him back in England to cover up his own failures and cowardice. 
> 
> Song of Songs: the reveries of Elaenor refence this several times. As mentioned: Miranda quotes Song of Songs to Pastor Lambrick in S1.


	5. The Bride and Groom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor marries Woodes Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was prevously a temporary chapter made on March 6th to explain the need for a short temporary hiatus to mourn Eleanor, after the airing of 4x06, especially as it was difficult to get into Woodes' skin for a wedding, after him being one of the major causes of events that lead to her death. 4x07 at least helped enough to do that again. I thank you for sharing your feelings and emotions about it in the comments, and letting me share mine with you. Originally I intended to skip the ceremony, or only use highlight of it in memory on the wedding night. However, I ended up writing the ceremony itself. For the most part this is an Eleanor POV chapter, but as it is union chapter, so it also includes Rogers POV. And I sincerely hope you like it.

When Chamberlain had decided to abandon them, Eleanor feared that Woodes might regret his intention to wed her, hold it against her that she had seduced him into bed less than a month ago, would capitulate to preserve his authority over the army. And yet, she also felt responsible, remembering Max telling her how his love for her might end up undermining his authority. “Perhaps, we should delay, until all is calmer and the rebellion is brought under control,” she offered.

He looked up at her from his chair. “A delay would only make me look like a doubting man, a man who does not know what he wants, nor believes in it, especially at times when loyalty is in short supply. In times of uncertainty, people require someone who leads without doubts.” He rose and stared into her eyes. “I know what I want – you, by my side, safe from the Street, rebels, my men, the law.” He took her hand and avoided her eyes. “But perhaps you need more time? Was I too hasty –“

She laid her hands on his face and pressed her lips on his. He welcomed it greedily. “I love you,” she said breathlessly. “There is no other man that I admire or trust as I do you. I want to be your partner in everything – in building a prosperous future here, at your table, in your bed.”

The frown of worry on his forehead that had been there for a moment was smoothed away and his eyes shone brilliantly. He caressed her cheek, while his other arm rested around her waist. “It is not always an easy thing, marriage. Your life will be that of a housewife, reclusive. No more beach walks. No more drinking rum at Max’s. Even if I regard you as my primary advisor, no one else will. You’ll have to sit with the officer’s wives, go to mass. You had a taste of that type of life the past fortnight. But it would be for a lifetime instead. I know you love me, but have you truly considered all that comes with it?”

Eleanor walked to the window and pondered Woodes’ words. His warning was sincere, she knew. Behind private doors with him she could talk freely, act freely, but not in public. She would have to play the role of a housewife, indefinitely, pretend to know her place. It was no easy thing, and she wished society did not demand it of her. But then she remembered Miranda. More than half a year ago, she had looked down on Miranda with her cap, corset and puritan dress. She had been more a name than a personality to Eleanor, so remote and seemingly so unimportant that Flint barely spoke of her – a woman of mystery. However, Miranda had been Flint’s true partner all those years, not Mr. Gates, not she. Miranda was the sole one who truly knew Flint’s mind, goals and plans, and his demons. In fact, some of his hunts and endeavors had been masterminded by Miranda. In the end, Eleanor had grown to respect her, admire her, even had been envious of the type of relationship she had with Flint.

 _How free was I truly in all those years when I ruled here?_ Free to swear, insult and hit people, and not having to wear a stay. But the chair, the power, and those she cared for did not allow her to make her own choices without punishing her. They told her what to feel, how to think, who to be _. I thought I had the power to control my destiny and Nassau’s, but I was only power’s prisoner._ _I had the keys of Nassau, but instead of those keys opening doors, I had to use them to lock myself in at night behind a barred gate._ Eleanor turned around and looked at him. _He will ask many things of me for appearances beyond this door, and I’ll likely balk each time, but at least he asks. He asks what I feel or think, rather than pretend to know me better than I do myself. He listens to me, even when he disagrees._ And that was a freedom she never had before. “I have one condition,” she said.

“And what is that?”

“I won’t wear a cap or a shawl and you will never ask me to. If I want to wear my hair free like a single woman, want to wear it down, then I can. My mind and my heart remain free, even if they are bound to you.”

His face softened and he smiled fondly at her. She stepped towards his outstretched hand, and he took her in his arms. He lifted her curls to his lips. “You can flaunt those gorgeous golden curls of yours as much as you like.” His eyes dropped to her bosom. “You can expose your heart.” His finger trailed the rim of her dress, touching the skin of her breast. “Just wear a fringy undergarment to keep your bosom modest, because those fawns are mine to lay eyes on solely.”

She kissed him, lips and tongue. He leaned into her, as if his knees buckled. He crushed her against him, kissed her greedily and yet lovingly. Such a sweet kiss, better than rum or wine. She grew faint with desire and love. Eleanor reeled on her feet as he kissed her throat, beneath her ear, her collar bone, her bosom. His hands pressed her back, her side, pulled at her frock, squeezed between her thighs. “One more night, my love,” she whispered, eyes closed, her hands cradling his head. “Tomorrow we will be wed.”

Woodes sighed, nuzzling his nose at the start of her cleavage. And then he let go. “Yes.” He looked drunk, swaggered on his feet. “Tomorrow.” He straightened himself and wiped his forehead. “Please, go now, for I am merely a mortal man. I will see you tomorrow morning in church.”

In her rooms, she discovered that Mrs. Hudson had laid out her wedding dress, made from satin and silk. The petticoat was a pastel green with embroidered vines of roses that continued into the stomacher of the same eerie green. The mantua and bodice were of a darker shade and came with a train from shoulders down to the rim of the petticoat. The sleeves only went as far as the elbows and widened into a gauzy fringe of the same lighter green that matched the veil. Eleanor picked up the veil. She held it for a moment, tried to imagine herself wearing one, like she had seen brides do in the past when she was still a young girl. Her mother had explained it stood for purity and the innocence of a virgin. Eleanor could guess what the lifting of the veil by the groom meant, likely the same as the piercing of the ears for the earrings. She shook her head and tossed it aside. The earrings were one thing, but there was no veil to lift, no maidenhood to give away anymore. Everyone knew it, and everybody knew that he knew it too. Appearances and pretense stopped serving its purpose when it entered into ridiculous territory. And she was quite sure that Pastor Lambrick would take it as an insult. So, no veil.

The next morning, Mrs. Hudson helped her dress after her bath, layer by layer. On went the stockings, her shift, and thereafter the stay, followed with the petticoat, the mantua, the stomacher. But when Mrs. Hudson began to plait her golden locks, she stopped her. “No, I prefer it if you were to do my hair as I have done since ever I boarded the _Delicia_.”

“Are you sure, Miss Guthrie?”

Eleanor smiled. “Yes. The hairclip will suffice.”

The chambermaid let the hair slip through her fingers. “It is a golden wonder now, compared to then.”

When Mrs. Hudson was done, Eleanor eyed the older woman from under her eyelashes. “How do I look?” Her mirror had been covered with a sheet, for it was unlucky if a bride saw herself in a mirror the morning of her wedding.

Mrs. Hudson smiled that thin lipped smile of hers. “You look very beautiful, mistress. And I have no doubt he will think you most beautiful.”

Eleanor lowered her eyes, blushed and smiled with a sigh. Her blue eyes glimmered. “Well, shall we?”

Max awaited her at the bottom of the stairs, twiddling a small bouquet of roses and lilies. She glanced at Eleanor for a moment, twirled on her feet and extended the bouquet while avoiding her eyes.  “The governor asked me to give you this.”

It were the first outward signs, since spring so very long ago, that Eleanor still affected Max in a manner Eleanor had not thought possible anymore. _Could she still love me? Desire me?_ She felt momentarily awkward herself. And yet, it made her all the more grateful that Max had agreed to be her bridesmaid. Eleanor accepted the flowers. “Thank you for doing this for me, Max. You and Mrs. Hudson are the sole people I consider to call my friends.”

Max pouted her lips, straightened her shoulders and nodded. “I know.”

A small escort of redcoats awaited her in the hallway of the mansion, led by Lieutenant Utley. Eleanor could not entirely think of them as regulars anymore, since they were all mutineers against their superior majors and generals. Many of the remaining redcoats were survivors of the battle at the Maroon Island - mostly young men, except for the captains and officers - and the experience had roughened their ways if not their faces. They had looked fresh and innocent almost when they first arrived on the island. Now they looked more like pirates with red coats. Lieutenant Utley was a different sort of man though, still gentlemanly - which was likely the reason that Woodes had picked him as Eleanor’s main liaison to arrange escorts since the soldiers mutinied. “Ma’m,” he bowed his head. “When you are ready?”

Eleanor smiled and sighed. “Let’s get on with this, yes.”

Since the ball, Nassau town itself had become peaceful - a quiet peace, rather than a lively one, born from fear and apprehension. People had retreated to the safety of their homes after the arrests and the soldier mutiny, waiting and watching. And yet, as Eleanor walked to Nassau church, it was not the subdued attitude of Nassau that made her apprehensive. It was the church itself. She had never set a foot in that place anymore, after her mother had been killed by its debris in the Rosario Raid. It was the one place that she had refused to help rebuild with the profits of her tavern. Over a month ago, the settlers had began to gift pennies and labor to at least get it back in use. But its tower was still black and broken. Half the roof was gone. The walls cracked. Men had cleared the inside rubble and had installed support beams to prevent the walls and leftover roof from caving in on people though. Perhaps it was some strange irony that she, a convicted pirate, would wed the royal governor in the cleared ruins of the place that got her mother killed.

Max and Mrs. Hudson went through the doors ahead of her. Standing in front of its wooden gate, bouquet in hand, Eleanor felt it keenly that behind it there was no father to walk beside her, no relative to give her away. Eleanor nodded at Lieutenant Utley that she was ready. They opened the door for her. She took a deep breath, lifted her head and looked across the aisle to that partner, the man who granted her life, a new life. With the sun streaming in through the half-open roof the aisle shone like a path of light, to Woodes standing sideways in the shadows and candlelight. He turned his head to look at her and stepped half in the light. She took her first step, another, and yet another, and so she walked the aisle all by herself, a grown woman, an independent woman choosing her partner for life.

He looked so handsome in his blue-green suit, loving with that softness in his eyes and face, charming and yet excitingly dangerous like a young girl’s wild dreams. How right they were to adore him. She smiled inwardly at the memory of her frustration and jealousy at Bermuda over Miss Salinger and other young women fawning over him. _I wanted him to desire a woman, flawed, tainted and imperfect, sunburned, with a dark past born out of dark men forcing me to tend to their needs instead of looking after my own growth, not a sheltered saintly virgin._ Maybe that was why she had been so adamant about coming to him as this independent, grown bride without a veil. To see in his own eyes the answer whether he’d rather have her veiled, pristine and inexperienced, never darkened, like the Miss Salingers of the world, or still considered her lovelier above any other woman, in the face of all that imperfection.

Rogers turned at the sound of her step through the doors. He stared to never forget the vision she was, dappled in light, her golden hair radiant, her face sweetened with softness, a vulnerable innocence lurking in her eyes. She was a miracle to him, a woman who had been dirtied and stained through experience and somehow had managed to cleanse herself from it all, beautiful and pure. His chest filled with pride, for a tried woman who could grow into such a beautiful being was a more precious jewel to him than a girl who had not been tested by life at all.

 As she strolled towards him in the streaming sunlight, Rogers remembered the first time he saw her, being taken from the ship, angry, eyes spitting fire, wild. He remembered how she stood before court, not with contempt, but regal almost, fearless, and proud, oh so proud. Eleanor had acted no less regal, no less wild, no less proud, no less fearless as if addressing an equal that day in her prison cell. Eleanor could not be cowed, not before court, not in prison, not on the _Delicia_. From the first day he laid eyes on her, she had stirred a fascination within him to know her better, to see more of her, to discover for himself why that was. Rogers had believed him guarded and prepared, but he had been unprepared for his self-deception about his attraction to her. He had no defense against her beginning to trust him, little by little, and revealing a far more softer side. _I was in love already, before I realized I was about to._ He had sought distraction at Bermuda, seeking enjoyment in the safe admiration of young daughters. But he had loathed every minute of it every day there. There was no doubt whatsoever in his mind now that she was his match, the sole woman who could please his very nature, and that everything had led to this union.

Eleanor had reached the end of the aisle and came to stand beside him to face Pastor Lambrick. She glanced at him and he at her. He beamed, she tried to suppress her smile.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony,” the pastor began his recitation.

Eleanor listened only with half the attention the pastor would have wanted. He sounded so serious and ominous when he reminded the people it was not to be enterprised lightly, unadvisedly or out of carnal lust and appetites like brute beasts. When his speech turned to that part it was hard not to giggle. Mischievously she thought that neither Woodes nor her would be standing here in front of an altar if it was out of mere lust. She pinched a nail into her hand and bit her underlip, and finally managed to compose herself.

“…but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, …”

Not daring to roll her eyes at his “in the fear of God,” Eleanor took a deep breath, made her face very serious, but her eyes wandered nonetheless to the missing roof where several pairs of lovebirds perched on the rafters. They were not native, but brought along by settlers, slave traders or taken as pets by pirates from merchant ships.

Rogers had heard it all before once, and cared less about the pastor’s introductory words than he did the first time. But he was very conscious of the fact how strange it was that both their lives, a world apart, had honed them into meeting and loving each other. Eleanor was eleven years younger than him. He was betrothed and still an apprentice in Newfoundland when she survived the Rosario Raid as a girl. While she learned the trade from Mr. Scott, not yet fully grown, he married Sarah and started a family in Bristol, overseeing his merchant business around Africa and the East Indies with no plans to sail anywhere. She took up the scepter of her father’s business when he agreed to Dampier’s plans to set up a privateering expedition in the Pacific instead of the West Indies to recuperate the losses in his business because of French pirates. Eleanor had governed the fencing trade in Nassau for six years when he sailed for Madagascar to see whether Lord Hamilton’s idea of pardons could work. It had not been her he wanted arrested at the start of the year, when the king, Whitehall and Lord Proprietors told him to subdue Nassau instead. He did not know of her existence at all, until Captain Hume informed him of his prize. Now it all seemed like a miracle to him. As a deist, he did not believe much in God having a hand in people’s lives. But with her it felt like God had a fucking hand in it _-_ for a rose of Sharon to grow in a thorny desert, so desolate of civility and love, as Nassau once was.

“First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.”

The mentioning of procreation piqued Eleanor’s interest. Her eyes wandered sideways to the man beside her. She would not mind having his child. At least Woodes was a man who could be relied on as a father to see his children secure and safe. She tried to imagine how a son or daughter of theirs might look like. But if she was honest to herself, Eleanor was not sure she could have a child anymore. Mrs. Mapleton had told her during her complications after her abortion that sometimes it damaged a woman enough to bar her from conceiving ever again. Her intercourse with Charles before her arrest in summer had proven fruitless. And she had the onset of her period the day Charles had been taken down from the gibbet. So, no child had come of her intimate relation with Woodes either. A part of her wondered if it would not be for the best if she proved to be barren. Woodes did not marry her to provide him with heirs, anyway. He already had those.  

Louder and slower, Lambrick said, “Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.”

Rogers heard a few coughs behind him and Pastor Lambrick’s judgmental stare made it clear that many believed this had to be his main reason to marry her. Rogers managed to stare back at Lambrick without flinching or blushing. Yes, he had proven to be inconstant to a wife who no longer loved him. Yes, he was a fornicator. _But I married the wrong wife in the first place._ He could have lived as a monk for the whole of his life, except around Eleanor. To love her, to make love to her was the union of divine worship. It was a sin to him to deny such a gift, and his abstention for a fortnight had only been motivated to make their already sacred union socially acceptable. In his heart, he considered himself her husband and bound to her the night she came to him. In a time and place where civilization did not require such appearances, he would have been husband to her every night from then on, for she had aroused a love in him, previously unknown, at the time when he was ripe to desire it.

“Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.”

Both Eleanor and Rogers had a fleeting look at one another, and their eyes met. This they both knew to be their reasons to solidify their partnership in marriage. They tried to stare ahead of them again. But their eyes were drawn to each other, while the pastor asked them and the congregation whether anyone knew of any impediment to the marriage and for those persons to speak, until eventually the mirrors of their souls were locked. No man, no woman spoke against it.

“Woodes Rogers, will you have this woman as your wedded wife, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep yourself only unto her, so long as you both shall live?”

“I will.” _And more_.

“Eleanor Guthrie, will you have this man as your wedded husband, to live together in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep you only onto him, so long as you both shall live?”

“I will.” Some people whispered in the back. Somebody chuckled. It was quite a lot to promise, certainly serving and obeying, Eleanor knew. Half a year ago, she would have scoffed at making any such promises, and yet she had obeyed and served him since before loving him. She had cared and stood by his side, when deadly ill, still trying to serve him to the best of her ability, even if it meant hanging a man she had loved once. Woodes essentially had nothing, lived on borrowed money. There was no one else she desired, not anymore. So, all in all, what was being asked of her, she had already done and would continue doing so.

Pastor Lambrick opened his mouth. “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” But while he spoke his voice faltered.

Eleanor laid her head to the side and stared at him with pursed lips. _Really?_ _I came to the altar by myself. You could have just skipped this part._ People whispered, Mrs. Hudson looked pained and Max held her lips stiffly together. Captain Berringer stood as Woodes’ best man and seemed to find it amusing. And Woodes eyed the pastor with annoyance. Eleanor opened her mouth to say she was giving herself away.

But behind her, someone from the women’s side of the congregation rose. “I do.” Stunned, Eleanor looked across her shoulder. Mrs. Mapleton had spoken up. “I give Eleanor Guthrie to be married to Woodes Rogers.” The older woman stepped forward to the altar.

Eleanor had never much liked Mrs. Mapleton, even though she used her as a spy. She never seemed much concerned with the welfare of others, never did anything that did not come off as self-serving. Eleanor certainly had never considered her a friend, let alone a guardian, and had always questioned her motives. She was this mystery woman, a spider lurking in the back and the dark, who would appear at the right time with advice and information that Eleanor disliked, but could not help following because she was a sensible, shrewd business woman.  When the elder woman took her right hand, Eleanor wanted to retract hers. But Mrs. Mapleton’s hand was firm and soft. Her eyes hinted at a glint of pride. And before Eleanor could in fact pull her hand away, Pastor Lambrick accepted hers from Mrs. Mapleton and delivered it just as quickly into Woodes’ outstretched hand.  Her frustration evaporated at once and she turned to face Woodes.

Rogers squeezed her hand and smiled at her. His thumb caressed the top of her hand. These moments of the ceremony were all that mattered to him. Following Pastor Lambrick’s instructions, Woodes repeated after Pastor Lambrick. “I Woodes Rogers, take thee, Eleanor Guthrie, for my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.” _And beyond._

Lost in his blue eyes, Eleanor repeated the pastor’s words, almost automatically and without thinking. “I Eleanor Guthrie take thee, Woodes Rogers, for my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and to obey, till death do us part.” _And may death never separate us._

Eleanor felt as if she was in some dream, while a ring was already asked for. Smiling, Woodes slid the ring across her finger. “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” The prayer that followed completely went over her head. She wanted this ceremony to be over, to be taken away by him, in a hurry, to his chambers.

“Please, join hands,” said Lambrick. They only had eyes for one another, smiling and touching, while the pastor declared, “Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.” Eleanor held her breath, in anticipation, wanting Woodes to kiss her with the kisses of his mouth. But the pastor remained silent. Woodes glanced sideways, darkly, at the pastor, who shuffled out the way with his head bowed. “Y-you may kiss your bride.”

Lambrick had barely finished his sentence, when Eleanor reached for Woodes’ face and his arms came around her neck. They pressed and crushed and squeezed their lips together, holding on to each other, leaving no space between. At which point men in the back began to whistle, cheer and clap their hands. “About time someone thawed Mistress Guthrie!”

“You kiss her, governor, good and tight,” shouted a woman in a vulgar accent. “You’re married to a Nassau now!”

Eleanor felt him smile, and then they parted before the cheers could become even more uncouth. Woodes licked his lips and smiled embarrassed without breaking eye-contact with her. She widened her eyes and rolled them, but could not help chuckling. This was Nassau after all, a town built with the help of knaves and whores. The noise in the church drowned out Lambrick’s speech, except for, “I now pronounce thee man and wife,” and his blessing. The pastor begged the congregation to join him in prayer, but he could not go against the tide of the rowdier mood.

Rogers had no need of anymore prayers and while the gathered crowd was cheerful it felt almost dangerously course. Understandably, the tension of the curfew and the past two weeks needed an outlet and there was no malice in the disruption. But Rogers did not wish to take any risks. He grabbed Eleanor’s hand and led her hastily into the aisle, leaving the pastor alone with his prayer book. With a flick of his eyes he signaled Captain Berringer to keep the peace and security. And seeing that the bride and groom were about to leave, the people in the back who had been so boisterous already milled outside.

In the excitement, Eleanor had been unsure of the goings on, especially when Woodes’ hand squeezed hers so hard as he made her leave the church. Eleanor did not know whether it was eagerness or fear in him. In the dress and shoes it was hard to keep up with his long strides.

When Rogers and Eleanor stepped into the daylight and on the steps of the church, they were rained on with corn and flower petals by the people of Nassau. But it was disorderly. People jumped, shouted and pushed each other. Reminded of the riot on the beach, Eleanor felt a momentarily fear. An arranged guard formed in line on both sides to clear a path and lifted their guns. The people of Nassau froze and fell silent. Berringer barked. “A salute for our lord governor and his wife!”

“Hip hip hooray,” said the honor guard in unison and released a salvo of shots into the air.

Nassau cheered, but less disorderly than before.

Rogers raised his right hand, while he firmly held Eleanor’s in his left. “People of Nassau! Men! I thank you for your congratulations. As one young lady said so aptly, today I married a Nassau, and so I am a Nassau too. The recent weeks had their upsets, but this is a happy occasion and I want you all to share in my joy. I have ordered three casks of ale and wedding cake so you could celebrate and salute us at Mistress Max’s.” This was met by another hooray. Rogers turned to Eleanor, let go of her hand and presented his arm. “Shall we, Mrs. Rogers?”

Eleanor bit her lip, locked her arm in his and nodded. Calmly they stepped down the stairs into the path cleared by the honor guard and walked back to the square. _Mrs. Rogers._ That sounded so strange. Just like that, she had gone from being Miss Guthrie to Mrs. Rogers. _I ought to feel different. I have another name now._ But Eleanor still felt herself. Yes, she had grown and changed over the course of months, gradually, before exchanging her name. And that transformation felt more like a self discovery of who she was, but never had a chance to be. Eleanor looked at her husband - _Husband. How quaint_. _It would not have been possible without him._ In that sense, taking on his name was an outward admission to the world of the mark he left on her, like a perfume. _His name is like a perfume._ Eleanor liked that idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor's choice: At the end of Queen of Thieves she says yes on a very emotional basis. She recognizes her responsibility in the hanging of Charles Vane, did it to help Rogers and protect his efforts. So, when there is a backlash, she feels guilty. When Eleanor feels guilty, she gives in easily to requests or demands to make amends, and they usually cost her. Hence the riot and Rogers' way of trying to protect her quickly pushes her into the background. At the ball and overwhelmed by all of it, she becomes this young girly princess, which is not who she is. She barely had time to really think this through, especially since Woodes kept a distance between them for propriety reasons. Rogers intuitively recognizes that guilt is what makes her retreat and that he may have been pushing her too hard, thus gives her a chance to consider all this in a mature manner. As a result, Eleanor is empowered enough to decide where she draws the line and to interrupt the physical intimacy before both are carried away. With that margin of taking something back for herself, she also expresses herself more Eleanor-like ("Let's get on with this.")
> 
> Eleanor's hairstyle in S4: this is indeed unconventional for a married woman. While she wears a shift beneath her dress with more fringe to cover her decollete and shows less of her breasts, she can let her hair hang down like that of a young unmarried woman (whereas in the first two seasons she wears her hair tight, like a married woman). Since Rogers evidently stands on appearances and public propriety (the peck on the cheek in 4x01), this is indeed a significant departure of the standard styling, as is the lack of a shawl. BTW you can see Eleanor's hair become more wavey and curly with each episode in S3. It's subtle, but done on purpose. 
> 
> Veil and wedding dress - a veil was not a standard item at the time. It only became so after Queen Victoria's wedding more than a century later. Hair though could be worn loose, and then the hair served as a symbolic veil (that did not need to be lifted). White was also not the standard color of dress, again not until Queen Victoria's wedding. A woman wore the finest cloth, style and colors of the period that she could afford. Wedding dresses continue to be an expression of contemporary fashion until the 70s. Just look at wedding pictures made in the 20s and 60s. 
> 
> The vows - Indeed Eleanor already acted and behaved like a wife to Rogers in S3 and Rogers behaved like a husband. He has her agree to obey him in 3x02, then she serves him as advizor, grows to love him, takes care of him while sick and still tries to do best by him, and certainly forsakes Vane. The ceremony for them is not the creation of a union, but the public statement ad recognition of what they are to each other already. This realization particularly comes into play when Rogers is confronted with the "avoid fornication" reason. If she was wife to him in S3, 3x07 was their wedding night already, already divinely sanctioned. He does not need this ceremony to feel he's with Christ, he needs it so society would also recognize it as such.
> 
> Mrs. Mapleton - I'm going out on a limb here. We have not seen her yet in the entire season, and have no idea really what happened to her after the S3 finale. She's a recurring character throughout the seasons though, usually appears later in the season, and I think she might still appear in an unexpected location. I suspect she was a spy and agent of Grandma Guthrie, who actually tried to shield Eleanor from the gravest dangers - Vane, being on the island when the gold would be fetched, and monitor Max closely. I imagine that Grandma Guthrie would initially have been proud and approving of her granddaughter becoming the wife of a royal governor. That is why I have Mrs. Mapleton stand up and give Eleanor's hand away. She is Grandma Guthrie's stand-in.


	6. The Newlyweds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding-afternoon is consummated. Rogers has a nightmare, followed by the scare of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic sexual scenes

Holding Eleanor’s hand, Rogers led her to his rooms. She closed the doors of his office and leaned with her back against it. Rogers tapped his desk and slowly turned around to watch her – _my wife_. Day by day by day, she was more beautiful and dearer to him. They stared at one another across the distance in silence. He delighted in every expression of her eyes and yet in that moment her gaze was overwhelming. He pointed to a chest in the bedroom. “I had Dyson take the clothes you selected into our room.”

One evening after the duel, Eleanor had asked him how he wished to repurpose her rooms. He had just assumed they would keep the established living arrangements. Sarah had always kept her own rooms and he would visit her at night by her invitation. It had never occurred to him that Eleanor envisioned entirely different living arrangements. “Why would we repurpose them? Your rooms are comfortable, with a parlor, quiet and cool, looking out across the garden, giving you all the privacy you could wish for. I will visit your rooms in the evenings.”

She had frowned. “Why would my husband have to call on me at night like a secret lover? Why would I wish for any privacy from you?”

Stunned, Rogers realized he had no direct answer to that. “Not from me perhaps. But my rooms are also an office, with messengers coming and occasionally petitioners.”

“My old bedroom at the tavern was in my office,” Eleanor said. “Besides messengers would still seek you out in my bedroom, if I were to keep it. Unless you intend to sleep alone to shield me from messengers?” She shook her head. “I have no need of the things there. They are comfortable rooms, and I enjoyed them very much. But I can entertain the few visitors downstairs in the salon. If I want to enjoy the garden, I’ll just sit inside its shade. I do not wish to sleep, bathe, dress or work away from you, and it would spare your soldiers on their guard duties.” And that had been the end of that discussion.

While Eleanor stepped away from the door towards him, Rogers said, “I will have your wardrobe and drawer moved in there too.” She took another step towards him. Her eyes had that magnetic look. _Altogether beautiful._ He felt his feet move, before his mind had made the conscious decision to do so. And yet, he altered his direction towards the office drawer. “I had Dyson fill my decanter with my best wine.” He opened it and poured it into two glasses. When Rogers turned to hand her one of the glasses, Eleanor stood right behind him. Gently he chinked his own glass against hers. “To us.”

“To partnership,” smiled Eleanor. She sipped from her glass as did he. His eyes were drawn to her scarlet ribbon lips and her teeth sparkling like white pearls. He had never paid much attention to it before, but now it seemed every of her teeth had its perfect twin. “Husband,” she drawled. He smiled and looked down at his glass. Perhaps these little things like drinking a glass of wine, talking about clothes were appearances that was not necessary between them.

Eleanor put her half empty glass aside and her soft fingers wrapped themselves around his, pulling. In her mind the true rejoicing of their wedding could only be consumed in bed, for his love was better than wine, freshening and strengthening like the first bite out of an apple.

Rogers set his empty glass on the tray that rested on the drawer and followed her into their bedroom. Her golden hair was a tumbling flock rolling from hills. As close as he trailed behind her, he could smell the mix of soap, rosewater perfume and her almost honeysweet personal fragrance. He leaned his head in, closer to breathe in that scent. There was no spice he knew of that smelled more pleasing to him. When they reached the bedside, Rogers pulled her to him. He needed to taste the dew on his bride’s lips, which he knew to be sweeter than the drops of a honeycomb.  
  
But she held him at bay with her free hand. “I propose a game.”

“A game!” Rogers said exasperated. Now that he was given in to his desire, he was in no mood for games. He wanted to undress her and fold with her into their verdant marriage bed. He leaned his head in, trying to kiss her.

But her hand pushing onto his chest did not give way. He loved her, she knew, because he showed it, because she felt it. But he never had said the words in isolation. Eleanor understood that for Woodes talk of love and feelings directly did not come easy. The problem was that she only knew her half of the story, but not his, and it had cost her dearly in the past with those before him. “A game of truth. I ask you a question and if you answer honestly, I will undo a garment. After that you may ask me a question -”

“Ask me,” he grumbled and rolled his eyes. There were a hell of a lot of layers to undo.

“When did your attraction to me begin?”

He squinted at her, while his thoughts veered to how her temples were like halves of a pomegranate to him. “The first time I saw you.”

“At my trial?” It could not have been for her bedraggled appearance. _It was something else._ _Was it the fearlessness and wildness that Charles saw in me?_ Eleanor had held her own at the trial – valiant and unbending. _He said he liked a response of mine. What was it again?_ How strange that two men were attracted to her at first sight, and yet be so different from one another, desiring almost opposite things of her.

“That’s two questions.” He lifted his eyebrows, brought her fingers to his lips. “I answered your first, I should get my reward.” Eleanor smiled, pulled her hand free and began to pull out the stomacher from underneath the laces of her stay. Rogers sighed, for it barely made any difference. “My turn. When did you begin to fall in love with me?”

Her eyes skirted left into the past. “While I rewrote your pardon address,” she said. He stared in those eyes that were like blue green pools. Eleanor did not confuse love with attraction or desire, and it had been his values she fell in love with, he understood. Rogers nodded and shrugged himself out of his coat. He flung it to land on the window seats and indicated with his chin for her to ask her next question. “Was it attraction that made you want to save me from the gallows?”

Rogers began to shake his head, and nearly said, “No.” But he frowned and realized that was too simplified a truth. “I would have offered you the pardon, regardless. But the attraction added to the hope that you would cooperate.”

Eleanor bit her lower lip and pulled off the mantua. Beyond her pride, Woodes must have recognized something that made him believe they wanted and valued the same thing.

Rogers sighed in relief now that he had a far more enticing sight of those twin fawns of a gazelle. He took a step closer, so only inches of air flowed between them. His mouth edged closer to hers, and she stretched her graceful spire of a neck. Rogers swallowed. Her game had enticed him enough to play a game of his own in return. He evaded her lips and whispered into her ear. “What was the first thing that stirred you?” He glanced at her chest heaving.

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly,” she whispered out of breath with closed eyes. Eleanor had a hazy recollection of his voice unnerving her, the soft breeze of his breath in her neck when he was close enough for her to smell him. “Your voice, your breath, your perfume.” Eleanor opened her eyes, staring at his chiseled cheekbones, inhaling his spiced scent, cinnamon and copal. “It was the intimacy of it.”

Rogers had begun to undo his jacket’s buttons when she uttered her first word. There were so damn many. _The intimacy of it. She wanted me to know her._ And he very much wanted to be intimate with her now.

Eleanor’s fingers flew to his aid with the remaining ones. “Was their jealousy in play when you threatened to send me back to London on the Gloucestershire?”

He was finally able to drag out his jacket. He balled it together to throw it onto the floor. “Hell yes,” Rogers said hoarsely and he tugged at the laces of her stay. In his excitement, Rogers had a hard time thinking of a next question for her. “The kiss… the first kiss … “ he stammered as he pulled another lace loose. He was not actually sure what he wanted to know about it. Then he blurted, “Would you have welcomed me into your bed that night?”

Eleanor’s lips caressed his and it was as if his fingers had become ten clumsy thumbs. “I merely slumbered that night, wanting you. I had to… ” Rogers yanked the stay of and kissed her. She took his hand and pressed it between her thighs. Even through the silk of her shift he could feel the heat and dampness of her fountain. “Had to…” She pressed herself against his fingers. “… make myself come.”

 _Jesus!_ In this type of game he would always be on the losing end with her, he knew. “I give in.” He pulled his stock tie loose while simultaneously toeing out a boot. “I don’t need you to answer any more question for me to want to take my clothes of.”

Eleanor licked her lips and waggled her eyebrows at him. “But I still require you to answer mine.” He waved his hand impatiently at her to ask him whatever she wanted, while he backed away and sat down by the window seat to remove his second boot. “Why do you love me?”

He got up and pulled his shirt over his head. _Why?_ There were thousands of reasons why he loved her. “Do you want me to name them all?”

That answer earned him the sight of her petticoat sliding down and a full view of her shimmering nakedness behind the veil of her shift. “Tell me five,” she said.

“Because when you look at me, you get the softest gaze in your eyes,” was the first thing that came to mind. Eleanor stepped out of one shoe. Rogers looked dismayed. “Sixty queens, eighty lovers and countless virgins combined could not complement me as well as you do.” He groaned in frustration when that answer only earned him the other shoe. “You make me whole.” Eleanor bent over and removed a stocking. He blew out a breath at the full sight he had of her breasts and he answered quickly, “Your passion,” to prolong that vision while she rolled off the second stocking. Only her shift and his trousers were left to undo. He stepped up to her, pressed his body against hers, pushed his bulging erection into her pelvis, sought the milk and honey beneath her tongue and slid his hands across her back until he cupped the cheeks of her arse. He lifted her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. He bent through his knees to place her on the bed.  

Eleanor crawled back and sat hunched on her knees. “One last reason.”

He stared at her, gazed at the marvelous vision of her. “Because I believe there is nothing we cannot accomplish together, when we put our minds to it.” Eleanor lifted her shift. The sight of her body dappled in the afternoon sunlight filtered by the window veils made him more drunk than a whole bottle of wine could. Her eyes flicked towards his pants, commanding him to take them off. “Why do you love me, Eleanor?” he whispered.

Her green-blue eyes met his and turned serious. “Because you delivered me.” Out of the wilderness of her life he had taken form like smoke, fragranced by all the spices of the merchants, filling her with his hope and faith, loving her despite the dark deeds of her past, and yet believing there was good in her. 

Rogers undid the buttons of his trousers, dropped them and crawled onto their bed to face her, shielding her from the heat of the burning afternoon sun. Eleanor delighted in the coolness of his shade. With the sun behind him, his wavy brown hair appeared golden. Her fingertips trailed his face, his cheekbones, the scar that was so much him that she could not picture him without it, his straight nose, his lips that kissed her fingers. There was no trace left anymore of his beating or his illness. He looked radiant and ruddy. She traced the line of his shoulder. Aside from the scab of his duel on his shoulder and red markings of old scar tissue, his torso looked like polished ivory and his legs like pillars of marble. She was lost in the jewels of his eyes that had turned a shade of a soft grey-blue, reminding her of doves and water streams, while the whites of it were as healthy as white milk.

His left hand caressed her cheek. His right arm stroked her waist and hip, embraced her and pulled her to him, while he relaxed his legs to cradle her. “Why me, Eleanor?” he mumbled.

She closed her eyes and rested her head in his palm. “Because you ask.”

 _Such a simple, sweet answer._ Eleanor stole his heart all over again. _Thief of my heart._ _Love, love, love_ , echoed in his mind, coursed through his veins, beat in his heart, screamed in his balls. _I just want to love her._ He kissed her lips.

Faint with love, Eleanor welcomed his lily lips, his tongue dripping with myrrh, his mouth that was sweetness itself. She let him pull her by the hips closer to him, lift her legs and she wrapped them around him. “Why me, Woodes?” she implored, when she laid her head back.

Rogers kissed her throat, while his palm bounded to the hills of her bosom and kneaded her breast. _Clusters of fruit._ He held the fruit, cupped it, plucked at her nipples as if they were grapes on the vine. Entranced, he watched her face, her half open mouth as she gasped for breath. He kissed her again. His tongue tasted fresh apples and his nose scented the spice of her tongue and her lips. _So heady and sweet_. His hand wrapped around the back of her head, kneading her golden hair, letting her tresses be his chains. The other sought the latch, that hidden hard button that would open doors for him, and found her dripping her sacred myrrh.

Eleanor’s heart pounded for him. She ached and throbbed for him. She swayed and sighed for him, wriggling her hips in response to his finger pressing and rolling the latch. This was good. This was intimate, oh so very intimate. She reached for his face and thrust her tongue into his mouth, wanting, needing a taste of his banquet. His free hand leaped to the mountains of her arse, pulling her to his lap, until he bumped against her mound, like a lover knocking on the door. Her fingers slid on his bolt, massaged him, lubricated him, positioned the tip at her moist well.

Groaning, Rogers grabbed her by the neck and kissed her hungrily. “Rise higher, my beautiful wife,” Rogers whispered. _Open up to me._ Eleanor leaned on his shoulders, lifted her hips a few inches, and his tip felt the silky touch of the entrance of her garden fountain. _Let me in, now_. He clenched the cheeks of his buttocks, pushed and felt her part way, sliding in deeper until he was snug and full inside of her like a proud stag. “Because you suit me, Eleanor.”

Eleanor moaned as his banner of love claimed her. She laid her hands on his jaw and kissed him, while meeting his upward thrust. “You are mine and I am yours,” she whispered. “Browse me until the next day breaks.”

Rogers rejoiced in her. Rogers delighted in her. He praised and worshipped her with his kissing lips, with his thrusts into the clefts of her rock, exploring the hiding places, and his arms and hands pressing her against him. She was his table to eat from. He was her wedding banquet. She was his banquet hall. She was a garden, an orchard of choice fruit and every delicious incense tree. She was a fountain, a well, a stream flowing refreshing water. She was a vineyard, blooming and rising high. She was the mountains and rugged hills that he climbed and climbed, burying his nose between her breasts, and sniffing the scent of her arousal, which was like myrrh to him. She was his woman, the sole family he needed, his wife, his bride. They danced on the rhythm of the waves. They rocked on the rhythm of the blowing wind. They sang a song.

Rogers opened his eyes to see her face in ecstasy. _So lovely_. The song was her voice of sighs, moans, shudders and whispered encouragement. _Catch for us the foxes my love, the little foxes._ He felt her tense more and more as the pitch of her song grew higher. “Come, Eleanor,” he whispered crushing her body against his. “Come with me.”

His song was that of kisses, of deep reaching thrusts and low voiced grunts, of his fingers digging into her arse, his biceps imprisoning her in his grasp, of his hoarse unintelligible mumbling. Eleanor rocked and reeled on his song, clawing to come with him. She could hear how near he was to coming. She peeked through her eyes and saw the exulting strain knotted on his brow. _My husband!_ Closing her eyes again, she tensed, forgetting all barriers, grappling for her own need, riding him. “I’m coming with you,” she whispered. “Oh, please come.” She held her breath, all taut, squeezing until she cried out her highest pitch, “Now!” and the tsunami hit her all at once, blowing her away.

Rogers pushed deeply to cause the blast that would explode from his balls to his chest, as she gasped breathlessly for air when she squeezed him, right before her, “Now!” He let out one slow rumble, as he shot his fire into her throbbing well. He pushed his forehead against hers, crushed his palm across her head. He thrust again, like an aftershock, with the rhythm of her after-sighs. He shuddered a chuckle. _You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you._ The typical fragrance he associated with her coming spread around him. He thrust again, to release the last of his powder. He felt her relax in his arms, while his body tingled all over, and he pulled her down, rolled her onto the bed and relaxed himself on top of her.

Eleanor wrapped a hand of hers in his damp hair, and pressed his forehead drenched with dew against her own. She kissed his lips and sighed in love. “Stay inside, a little while longer.” Her muscles hugged him. With her legs, muscles and hands she held all of him and did not let him go.

Rogers shuddered, but he remained as long as he could. His hand played with the curls of her hair. He kissed her lips, the tip of her petite nose that pointed in the air and finally her eyelids. He caressed her cheek with his own, trailed his fingers along her arm and her waist, to the outside of her upper leg that surely had been crafted by Michelangelo, shifting her graceful legs to cross around him, so he could stay some more. “My beautiful and loving wife, Eleanor.” He smiled and rested his head in her ivory neck. She was beautiful and pleasing, full of delights. He had come into his bride’s garden, gathered his myrrh and his spice, ate his honeycomb and honey, drank his wine and milk. _I am happy._ Getting drowsy and spent, he fell asleep.

She sighed as he left her. _He is gone._ “I love you too.” She looked at him, but could not see his face. “Woodes,” she called him. “Husband.” There was no other answer but the slow breathing of a sleeping man. He started to weigh heavy, and she shifted her position carefully. In his slumber, he moved and rolled off her, taking her along with him in his embracing arms. His head rested between her breasts, like a sachet of herbs and spices, and his arms held her waist. Her fingers played with a trail of his wavy hair and she inhaled his perfume, a mix of copal and blossoms. Eleanor’s eyes fell on the golden glint of the ring on her finger. She lifted her hand, extended her arm and stared at the ring. _I’m a wife now, Mrs. Rogers._ Her hand dropped back onto his head to caress it. _My sleeping husband._ _My Woodes._ Woodes stirred and his arms tightened around her waist. That unconscious gesture made her feel loved and cared for. He was her sole true family, her friend, her love. There was nothing she would not do for him. _I am happy._ She closed her eyes, believed herself awake, and yet dozed off.

Through the trees, Rogers could hear dogs baying, trumpets blaring and horses galloping. He heard something rustle through the brush. He brought out his loaded flintlock pistol, held it up beside his face. _I only have one shot at this._ He estimated the direction the fox was running towards to make its escape and then raced after it, jumping the brush and bushes. He had to catch it before Eleanor would. _It should not be her who ought to catch the foxes._ The deeper he went into the forest, the quieter and the darker it was, except for the occasional brush of that devilish fox trying to escape and staying ahead of him.

“She’ll betray you,” Vane’s raspy voice echoed through the trees. Rogers cocked his gun. From another direction Vane said, “For the next person she tells what they want to hear.”

Rogers swiveled on his heels towards the sound and barked, “There will be no next man! She’s my wife now!” Vane chuckled in response. Slowly, Rogers walked in the direction of the source of the noise. “I will hunt you!” he shouted. “I will catch you! And I will hang you!”

He stepped into a clearing. But even this deep in the woods, the trees were so old and gnarly, high and wide that the canopy prevented any daylight from reaching the ground. All was quiet. All was dark. A pit was dug in the earth. Carefully, Rogers walked over and peeked across the ledge. But just before he could see what lay at the bottom of it, something jumped him from behind, knocking the gun out of his hands. They fought, rolled across the grass, twigs and leaves. The ghost hit him onto the ground and pummeled his face. “Don’t you know that anyone who fucks with her always pays the price.”

Rogers clung to Vane’s coat with one hand, while feeling in the foliage for his pistol. His fingertips felt the hard, polished texture of the grip. As he took blow after blow, his fingers edged ever more closer, until he could wrap his hand around the grip. He lifted the gun and pulled the trigger. The shot sounded loud and dry. “That’s why I make love to her.” But all Rogers shot was air. And when the smoke cleared, he heard the haunting sound of a swinging rope. He crawled up and turned. A fox swung from a tree branch, its tongue sticking out, and the sound of running foxes had multiplied. _Too late._

The forest echoed with laughter. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

Rogers jerked awake. The light was different, darker. _Near dusk. Sunset. How long did I sleep?_ He rubbed his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, pondering his nightmare. It was not the first one he had about Captain Vane. He had hoped that marrying Eleanor would make it go away. It had not. Rogers turned his head to the side. Eleanor slept soundly with her back to him. He sat up, rolled on his side and leaned on his elbow. He moved the curtain of her blonde hair out of the way to watch her face. Eleanor slept peacefully with a faint secret smile on her face. _Why does Vane not haunt her dreams like he does mine?_ Rogers was sure that she must have loved the man once, that a part of her loved at least what they must have shared once even when she put everything in motion to have him tried and hanged in Nassau. And yet, any guilt Eleanor ever expressed was how it failed to appease Nassau.

Rogers laid down behind her, huddled close, and wrapped his arm around her waist. _I wish I shot Vane in the head once the militia pulled him off me._ It pained him that she had been put into the situation where she had no other recourse than to see Vane hanged to protect him. It pained him whenever she was blamed, that she now was a target, solely because he had been unwilling to seize the opportunity to end Vane’s life when he had the chance because it was uncivilized to kill a live captured murderer without a trial. “It wasn’t your fault, Eleanor,” he whispered to his sleeping wife. “But mine. I promise you. I will hunt them. I will catch them. And then I will kill them.”

Rogers laid his head against her back and caressed her belly. Her skin and hair smelled of sex -her own scent mingled with his and the sweet aroma of her earlier orgasm. He could not help his physical response to her sensual body against his. He did not want to wake her, and yet he pressed his lips against her shoulder blades, inhale the erotic perfume and press his erection against her. His hand on her belly crouched lower, into her royal tapestry of soft, blonde downy mound. Eleanor mumbled something inaudible and rocked her hips a little, arousing the need in him for her only more.

Eleanor woke from her slumber, aware that she was being kissed and fondled. There was a need in it, but not an urgent one, not meant to pressurize, not meant to disturb, but almost like a secret desire to please without him wanting her to know it. She lay still with her back to him, her eyes open, and experienced her husband’s surreptitious kisses, his hot breath near her ear, the furtive touch of his fingertips. And then she heard it, like the softest breeze, barely audible, the faintest of whispers in her ear. “I love you.”  

She was certain then that his heart was utterly hers. “Mmmm,” she moaned her appreciation, pretending to just wake up, and lifted her right arm to reach behind her.

He pulled his head away and his hand froze. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”      

Eleanor turned her head enough, so she might look her husband in his eyes. “If waking up is better than dreaming, then why should I mind?” Her fingertips grazed the skin and stubble of his face gently. She closed her eyes and kissed him.

What followed was hardly describable. Initially, both their focus was on giving her pleasure, slowly and lazy, both their hands on her nodule, until she entreated that she needed him. He entered her lying behind her, almost shocked at the complete welcome he received and how it pleased her. It was a most intimate embrace, where he barely knew which were his limbs and which were hers. Rogers did not know where he began and where she ended, in body, in mind, in heart.

Eleanor felt as if he reached into her, wrapped her up in his heart and desire, cuddling her until her sense of self dissolved into something bigger than the sum of them. They whispered sweet things to each other, as if they pulled it out of each other’s minds. Nobody led, nobody followed, even as the cadence became frantic and he had to grasp her hips to thrust into her deep, hard and rapid to come. It was just right and happened. Even after they both peaked, they lay close together, skin to skin, smiling, saying whatever came to mind, chuckling, hands and legs entangled.

Eleanor still felt tingly, loved and a partner to something she had no words for, when her Woodes rolled away from her onto his back. “I’m starving,” he said.

Wrapping the sheet to her body, she rolled on her back to look at him, with a teasing smile. “You haven’t had your fill yet?”

He glanced at her, caressed her cheek and kissed her. “I mean real food, to refill my reserves.” He lifted his eyebrows and sighed.  “You did after all mention until the day breaks, and the night has barely begun.” He got up, grabbed his robe and padded in the darkness to his office.  

Eleanor sat up, clutching the blanket. “What! Downstairs?”

Woodes stopped and turned half around. “No, I’ll have Dyson bring food up.”

Realizing how dark it was, she furrowed her brow, scampered out of bed and grabbed her own robe. “I’ll light the candles.” While he was gone, she lit every candle until their rooms sparkled with the many dancing flames. Waiting for his return, she ambled towards the window, looking at the last disappearing light at the western horizon, smiling to herself and thinking that so far she liked being a wife. And as she stared out into the night, something caught her attention, a movement on the nearest roof. She squinted and tried to decipher what is was.

Just then her husband entered, telling her there would be warm food brought up in half an hour. Eleanor turned. “Did you order soldiers to watch over Nassau at night?”

Startled, Rogers froze. “Beg pardon?”

Eleanor pointed at the window and leaned in closer to the glass to look at the shadow again. “There’s a man on the other roof.”

Rogers heart stopped for several heartbeats. “Eleanor, get away from the window.”

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “What?”

“Get down, Eleanor! Now!” he barked and rushed to her. The glass shattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of Songs: rife with references to it. Since there are Eleanor-Miranda parallels in the show and Miranda recites verses of the song of songs to Pastor Lambrick, how happiness does not require sacrifice, pain or tragedy to be real, and this is an insight that Eleanor grows towards within the relationship with Woodes, it is abolutely suitable. 
> 
> Sex scenes: are meant to denote mostly intimacy. Like in 3x05 I associate the emotional opening up and honesty with the stripping of the layer of clothes, this time by them asking questions of each other. 
> 
> Rogers' dream: it serves to extrapolate how he becomes so protective of Eleanor. It's not just the backlash dangers to her life that eat at him, but also fed by guilt that he chose to do what's right in the eyes of civilisation, that led to Eleanor hanging Vane according to the law (and thus in those times considered as civilised execution and justice), but likewise makes her a true target of assassination. He knows that if he shot Vane on the spot when the militia dragged him off him, those militia wouldn't have blinked an eye (former pirates after all), nobody in Nassau would have made a fuss since he could make it a tale of self-defense. It also foreshadows how this guilt and wish to catch the foxes for her leads him to a darker place.


	7. Piece the Resistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max has her own ideas on how Eleanor is placed into the political background. When she learns the resistance aims to free the prisoners from the fort, she uses this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - give Eleanor a reminder of the past as well as the necessary information to ambush the rebels.

There had been some incident on Eleanor's wedding night, but nobody knew precisely what, except that a man was chased by Captain Berringer and got shot. It was at a council dinner in the assembly hall that Max asked what exactly happened. The governor studied Max and then glanced at Eleanor seated at the other end of the table.

Eleanor threw down her napkin, stood and smiled at the other council members' wives, saying, "It seems the council has business to talk of. Let's leave them to it, shall we?"

Almost six weeks ago, Max had been somewhat annoyed at the fact that Eleanor was the governor's most trusted advisor, having managed to have a better position than her. She also had seen the positive influence he had on Eleanor by reining in her most impulsive tantrums. _God knows how much Eleanor needed that._ Three weeks ago Max had felt validated when the governor fully recognized her position as head of the council. But now it angered her to see him signal Eleanor to leave the room with a flick of his eyes. She hated him a little for it and she felt sorry for Eleanor. This was not the Eleanor Max had admired once, looked up to, had tried to emulate, without making her mistakes. The Eleanor she knew would be appalled at being sidelined like that, no matter how much it appeared the governor and Eleanor were in love with each other.

It was not solely this that made Max uncomfortable. With the parting of the other women, Max became the odd one out. Despite the fact that Eleanor had made mistakes in Max's eyes, Max simultaneously found it important that the council members, especially the British ones, had listened to Eleanor when she substituted for the governor. Despite their disagreements, the men were forced to recognize the two of them as rational human beings with as much a sense of business and governing as the men. But if the governor sent his own wife packing to the drawing room, then what was the chance that they would listen to Max?

Rogers took his glass of wine and sipped from it. When he set the glass down, he said in a measured tone, "This man threw a rock through my bedroom window from a neighboring rooftop." He laid his hand down on the table, and almost formed a fist, the knuckles whitening. "He ran and was chased by Captain Berringer and his patrol. When he was apprehended, he resisted arrest violently. Lieutenant Kendrick fired his rifle in self-defense and wounded him mortally." He smiled at her, but his eyes were cold, hard and angry.

Max pursed her lips and frowned in thought. The governor's explanation did not add up. If Mr. Todger had been so dangerously violent that he threatened a soldier's life, then he must have done more than throw a rock through a window. Or if all the danger he imposed was no more than breaking a window to then run, he was most likely callously executed on sight by overzealous soldiers. She lifted her nose in the air. "I will relate this to Mr. Todger's widow who is expecting his child."

Rogers heaved a deep breath and his hand relaxed. He almost appeared saddened. Without looking at her, he said, "You can send her to me for recompenses of her loss."

The rest of the council smiled reassured on the topic of Mr. Todger and began to discuss security measures, in how much the curfew could be relaxed, when the postponed trials would be finally held, how to ship the interior's sugar cane with Teach and Flint hunting the seas, and keep commerce going. All the while, Max's mind wandered to Eleanor in the room nearby, and she was relieved when the governor ended the meeting and proposed the council to rejoin the wives.

Max helped Eleanor with the serving of tea, giving her a sympathetic, supportive smile, though Eleanor failed to respond to it. If Eleanor did understand, she was good in feigning not to notice it. Max opened her mouth to speak, but just then the governor approached and Eleanor handed her husband his cup with a secret smile while raising her eyebrows meaningfully. Gosh, Max hated a couple making eyes at each other without her knowing what it meant.

"Thank you, my dear," Rogers said in a low, warm voice, not just taking the cup, but simply holding on to it.

And then Max was surrounded by the other women passing on cups to the men of the council. By the time everybody had their tea, Eleanor was seated in a sofa next to Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Soames. But the governor still stood beside Max, circling his tea spoon in his cup. "Please take a turn with me outside, Mistress Max." Outside, on the terrace he inhaled a deep breath of the late afternoon air, picked up his cup and drank. "Every time I come out here, I am reminded of how so much better it smells here than London." Max raised her eyebrows skeptically. Nassau was not particularly the cleanest place either. "Yes, there is the smell of a port, of people's toils, the taverns, the inns, grease and oil, but also the sea. Both remind me of home." He looked at her for a moment and smiled. "I grew up in ports – Poole until I was eleven, Bristol after, while my father sailed months on end in Newfoundland. But here, the sea air smells different, lively, wild almost, adventurous, passionate and yet sweet." It was strange to hear it described by a man who had grown up in an entirely different climate. Max had been born and raised in the Caribbean. Rogers sighed. "London is just, well, rank mostly. I never really much liked it. Though it has its pleasures, like coffee. I miss coffee." He smiled apologetic. "Well, I did not invite you for a turn in the garden to ramble on how much I love the smell of Nassau. So, let us get to business."

"My lord?"

"Earlier, you inquired after this sorry business with Mr. Todger. What I am about to tell you stays between us. I do not wish the full story known on the street, as it would only endanger the life of my wife." The governor turned around to stare at the salon scene from the terrace. Max followed his eyes and watched Eleanor along with him. A lively Mrs. Soames was talking to her, but Eleanor paid little interest and seemed bored. Max felt her anger rise once more. Governor Rogers lowered his silken voice. He sounded sad. "Long John Silver put a bounty on Eleanor's life, an extra share of the cache for the man who manages to kill her. Mr. Todger was the first who hoped to collect."

"It was more than a stone," said Max.

"Yes. He fired on her." Rogers said no more than that.

Max watched the governor closely as his own sight was fixed on Eleanor at the other end of the terrace doors in the drawing room. There was a determination in it that she had only seen once before when he wanted Anne Bonny found, but not in relation to Eleanor. Whatever had happened that night, however close the bullet came near, Eleanor seemed unfazed by the incident. Eleanor had survived many threats, some worse than a lousy shot in the night, and she had always faced them chin up, challenging the threat. _It put fear in this man though, even if he hides it well._ "Mr. Todger did not die by accident."

"He was shot in the leg while running away. If treated, he could have lived." He stared at his cup for a while, fingered the delicate ear, then downed it and set it aside on the terrace's stone balcony. "A newly recruited rebel, carrying Long John Silver's note to declare the bounty publically in case he failed." Rogers met her eyes. "If you loved someone, would you want the street to learn of this? Have the doctor patch him up, put him on trial, give him the chance to interest desperate men who murdered before into finishing the job for him, and then hang him? Or would you allow him some pain relief and let nature take its course?"

Max frowned. Max had never killed a man in her life, never ordered someone killed. On the contrary, she prevented Idelle from hiring men to kill Anne, so no more harm was done. Not that she did not believe that some men deserved to die. Anne had killed Max's rapists for her and Max had been glad they were dead. But Max did not have the killer instinct, not the way Eleanor or Anne did. Instead she had put events in motion less than half a year ago and then let nature take its course, when she sold a hunter lead of Eleanor's to Ned Low, knowing what a violent man he was, that Eleanor would challenge him at a time that Charles was least likely to lift a finger to protect her. "Let nature take its course," she whispered, trying not to think that she had done that so chaos and harm could come to someone she loved, instead of order and protection. Max pushed the thought away. _That is all in the past_. "If Silver wants to make the bounty public knowledge though, he could do so, at any time."

"And I need any such attempt stamped out in its cradle. Since the cache is not on the island, the bounty is but an empty promise. I know you can help me with that." Rogers scraped his throat and gestured his chin at Eleanor. "I understand you take an interest into my wife's well being, as her friend." He leaned against the balustrade, arms folded in front of him and stared at the tips of his boots. "There is no one else's council I depend on more than my wife's. However, _her_ safety, _her_ life depends on the street, the council and the rebels not knowing this. And while this may ire you –" Max opened her mouth to protest, but Rogers raised his hand. "I know it upsets you, Max. Hear me out. While this may ire you, she married me with full awareness what role she has to play in the eyes of Nassau and consented to it. The transition would just be easier for her, if you do not press matters publically with her. All I am doing is make sure that she remains safe and alive. Will you help me do that?"

Max pressed her lips together . Though she hated to consent to this, she could not fault his reasoning. "Yes, my lord." But once she walked back home , before curfew, she reminded herself she had only promised to not challenge him on Eleanor in public. She could however try to empower Eleanor to stand up to him from within. "Eme, do you know where Eleanor's former clothes are?"

"Ma'am?"

"Eleanor's clothes, before she was taken to London."

Eme stared at her. "They were worn by the men for the theatrical trial, last."

"Find them. I need them."

"Why?" Eme asked in evident puzzlement.

"To return them to Eleanor of course." _Maybe that will remind Eleanor that she once bossed the island for close to eight years by herself._ Max realized that Eleanor might have let the power go to her head at some point, but she did manage the island for at least seven years in relative peace.

The next day, Max looked at the pile of Eleanor's clothes. She picked up a white blouse which was stained with lip coloring. _They need washing_ , she thought. When Mrs. Mapleton entered her office, Max dropped the blouse and turned. "What is it?" Mrs. Mapleton raised her eyebrows meaningfully. This prompted Max to sit behind her desk, in her chair, fold her hands together and hear the woman out. "Well?"

Mrs. Mapleton stepped closer to the desk and said in a low voice, "The rebels plan to break out the prisoners from the fort."

 _Well, that was to be expected,_ Max thought. The governor had twelve prisoners. Eleven of those were young, able fighters. Max estimated that the resistance numbered anywhere between thirty or forty men now. If they managed to free those prisoners, they might number fifty. The governor had stalled the trials and executions for far too long. _How foolish!_ _And now I will have to remedy it._ "And how do they plan to do that?"

"If I were a betting woman, I would say they intend to use the tunnels. Idelle has tried to get information from Lieutenant Kendrick regarding their security."

Max furrowed her brow. "They don't have keys to those gates."

"No, but some are old and rusty, and with some leverage and saws they might hope to create an underground breach."

She sighed and nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Mapleton. Leave it to me from here."

Mrs. Mapleton inclined her head and then her eyes fell on the pile of clothes. "Are those Mrs. Rogers' former clothes?"

Hearing Eleanor called by that name still startled her, and Max struggled to keep her face from revealing anything over it to Mrs. Mapleton. Max rose from her chair. "They are."

"The clothes don't make the woman," the elder woman said mysteriously.

Max put her hand on her side. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Volunteer to be the one to give her hand away. Eleanor entered alone, she walked the aisle alone. And that pastor had simply misspoken, because he was going by the recipe in his prayer book."

Mrs. Mapleton shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I don't know. Pastor Lambrick embarrassed her. I knew her mother once. Mrs. Guthrie was a fine lady - too fine a lady to acknowledge the likes of me much. She convinced Richard Guthrie to move her and her daughter to the interior, away from the pirates, the smugglers and the whores." Mrs. Mapleton smiled. "I guess I thought her mother would have liked it if Eleanor married a man like our governor. Do a kindness, so to speak."

"Hmmmm." Max pursed her lips. "So, you approve of this marriage?"

"Well, it might be to all our benefit, one day."

Max jerked her head up. Mrs. Mapleton's eyes seemed to glint with mischief. "What do you mean by that? How would it benefit us?"

"Well, once a woman gives up her independence, she becomes her husband's responsibility. And he certainly did not marry her for her connections or money. A husband in love will eventually face the decision of sending his wife far away to a safer location, especially if his wife were to get with child, and Mrs. Rogers would have no other alternative than to obey. A great deal of the issues that came with the hanging of Charles Vane would then disappear."

Max gaped at Mrs. Mapleton. She nearly choked on the idea of Eleanor as a mother. Most women of Nassau tried to prevent, stall or abort a pregnancy. _But Eleanor is married to a Royal English governor, living a traditional domestic life_. As young as Eleanor was that would include children. Suddenly, Max could not get the image of Eleanor with a baby in her arms out of her mind. Max would have laughed at it half a year ago, but in the present circumstances it was almost to be expected. In love and leading a quieter life Eleanor might even welcome it. And while the governor married her out of love and wanted her with him, Max remembered that determined look on him when he talked about keeping Eleanor safe. _He might send her away, for a year, for several years, perhaps as far as London, sooner than later, especially with the rebels intending to place a bounty on her._ Max did not like that prospect at all.

"Will that be all, Mistress?" said Mrs. Mapleton.

"Yes, thank you."

While Max ordered Eleanor's clothes washed, she put several of her boys to scouting work. They had to watch the tunnel entrances for any type of activity. Whether men passed by, entered it, appeared to inspect it, and whether they did so repeatedly. Two days later, she set out with clothes and knowledge and called on Eleanor. When a puzzled Eleanor accepted the paper wrapped packages, Max said quickly, "Those are your old clothes."

Laying down the packages on the coffee table, Eleanor frowned and her hand hesitated to touch them, hovering over them. "My old clothes …" She stared at Max. "Whatever would I need them for?"

 _To jog your memory_ , Max thought. But she said out loud, "I needed an excuse to call on you. I have my informants, but I and my assistants are being watched as well. I am here to warn you."

An hour later, Eleanor returned to their rooms. Woodes scribbled away at his desk and gave her a fleeting smile when she entered, before redirecting his attention to his reports, letters and log. She watched her husband for a moment. He was always working . She knew this for a long time, having worked by his side, but actually sharing his living quarters day and night it was even more noticeable. She had been that way once herself, even when all was quiet and peaceful, always planning, always anticipating, always trying to be ahead of trouble.

She took a load of his shoulders for a while now, by trying to think along with him on issues, by listening. But especially since being married to him, if only for a week now, the realization grew within her that she could help in other meaningful ways. He would lose track of time passing, forgot to eat, stayed up far too late or lay awake pondering. Fearing his health might deteriorate once more, Eleanor felt an increasing responsibility to take care of his physical needs. She had begun to gather recipes. She took it on herself to shop for the meat and vegetables, not trusting the kitchen personnel entirely, not after his illness. And she took meticulous care of ordering Dyson to see to breakfast and dinner times, without exception. Her Woodes liked having a garden, but would not stir from his office, unless she spent time there reading or writing in her own journal. Usually he would seek her out there to discuss the latest issue brought up in a meeting, but once there, he would relax and enjoy his surroundings. So, Eleanor was resolved to routinely spend time in the garden.

Her ultimate tool at her disposal to get him to bed, to make him forget about the world and Nassau and fall asleep was sex. Only last night, he had been so focused on his journal and maps, and all he had replied to her "It's getting late," was a non-committing "Hmm." So, she had gotten up and began to undress in front of the bed in plain sight for him, taking her time, long enough for him to notice it, and finally join her. The night before, she had taken the book he was reading out of his hands and lead him by the hand into the bedroom. And this morning, when he got up and started to dress, Dyson knocked on the door to inform him from the other side that Mr. Frasier had business with him. He barely had his shirt on, had not even had breakfast. And Eleanor was not having it. She had exposed her nakedness to him and signaled him with her finger to come back to bed. "Mr. Frasier can wait. Your wife cannot."

 _I am his Max_ , Eleanor realized as she watched her husband write. Until now she had never fully understood how vital Max had been to her own well being and sanity a year back, what Max had done for her and why. _She did care for me. She did it out of love._ Eleanor had never felt that type of love before for others, and after her mother and Mrs. Scott died nobody took care of her that in that way either, not until Max. Charles had loved her in his way, but his way had been one of taking, not giving. _Maybe that was why I never fully trusted Max, why I was so reluctant to receive what Max gave._ At least since the night after the attack on the caravan, Woodes received her affections and her care without hesitation, without her needing to coax him and he gave to her as much as she gave him. Eleanor now understood that as a sign of trust in her.

And at that moment she noticed a familiar frown appear. His plume halted writing. Woodes looked up at her, a question in his eyes, and he laid the pen down. "Something wrong?"

Eleanor smiled and shook her head. She stepped towards his desk and walked around to his side. "I just saw Max. Your plan worked. They mean to bust out the prisoners, tonight or tomorrow night."

"Did Max found out how they want to do it?"

"The south east and south west tunnels, though Max thinks one tunnel is meant as a decoy to draw soldiers to the wrong tunnel."

Woodes got up. "Alright, I'll go to the fort, set up the watches."

But Eleanor grabbed his hand and shook her head. "Let Captain Berringer take care of it. That's what you have him for. You don't need to do it all yourself, you know. Besides, rebel spies may become suspicious or on the alert and alter plans last minute, if they see the governor at the fort all day." She took a step closer and caressed his cheek. "Invite him for light dinner and we –" She corrected herself. "And you can tell him how to take care of it."

The next day, Max had slept in longer than usual, and when she made her way down she heard heated words from Idelle's room. As Max drew in closer, she noticed that Idelle's neighbor had already gone down. Max opened the door of the empty room and snuck up to the wall to make out the words.

"Fuck! What a huge fuck-up!" Featherstone said repeatedly. "A total fucking disaster!" His voice sounded closer, then further away again. Max gathered he was pacing Idelle's room. "Fuck!"

"You said that twenty times already. Now will you finally tell me what happened?"

"They failed, that's what happened."

"I gathered that." Idelle sounded annoyed. "What else?"

"Fuck!"

"Maybe they can try another escape plan during the trials."

"Impossible. It are twelve individual trials and we just don't have the men anymore."

Max raised her eyebrows. The governor must have really dealt the resistance a heavy blow. It was silent for a while at the other side of the wall, until eventually Featherstone related the story. "I waited all night at the headquarter with Ben Gunn for Billy's and Jacob's return." Max had never heard of this Ben Gunn before, but she realized that Featherstone was talking about Billy Bones. "Jacob returned first. He sent Frank and three others into the west tunnel with torches as the distraction team. None of them ever got out again. Jacob says he heard faint echoes of salvo shots fired and then nothing. They're presumed dead."

"Well, they knew they might never make it out alive," said Idelle. "They were willing to sacrifice their lives for their eight captured brothers after the fuck-up at the ammunition storage. It was them who fucked up by making too much noise in the first place."

"That's right. But this time around it seems they never got much a chance to make noise at all. Dozen men went into the east tunnel, all sooted up and snuffed their torches well before the last bend before the gate. They approached the gate in the pitch black, managed to get that far, and began to saw the lock. That's when they were shot at. Fuck! Jonesy swears that in the flashes of the gunfire he could see that half a squadron had been lying in wait for them. Berringer was prepared for this. Both gates had soldiers waiting in ambush in the pitch black."

"Maybe the governor just wanted extra precautions?"

"I'm telling you that Berringer knew the plan. Jonesy and others ran for their lives back through the tunnel. Only four made it to the exit, with soldiers chasing after them. Billy and his men, waiting outside, fought and killed those. But in the midst of that the cavalry emerged."

"Jesus!"

"They had to make a run for it."

"How many?"

"Seventeen of us dead." Featherstone sounded tired.

"Seventeen!" exclaimed Idelle. "That's almost half!"

"Yes, and three of those are heavily wounded." Again there was only silence at the other end of the wall. "So, that's it. Those twelve men are going to hang. There's nothing we can do about it. Fuck!"

Max had heard enough. Silently she walked away and went to the tavern, thinking that if the governor could find out where those headquarters were, he might be able to quell it altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The clothes - Max uses the clothes as an excuse to her people in the tavern to actually reveal crucial information about the resistance to Eleanor, while the information is her excuse to hand Eleanor her former clothes back to jog her memory and pride. In many ways, Max serves as an outsider POV on the Eleanor-Woodes relationship. She sort of voices the feelings that many have with regards Eleanor's transformation and Woodes' role in it.
> 
> Eleanor x Woodes - No one can truly know or judge the dynamics of a relationship from the outside. Max and many viewers may have their opinions on who Eleanor should be, but ultimately Eleanor is free to decide who she wants to be, free to decide her own role, free to decide what she finds necessary and important. That's why I have Eleanor's POV midway the chapter. Her thoughts completely omits the assassination attempt. She is less bothered by it than Woodes Rogers, who expresses to Max that his main priority is Eleanor's safety. I also purposefully leave out how she escaped the bullet. Mr. Todger may have been a lousy shot. Rogers may have toppled her over. Eleanor may have ducked herself in time. In contrast, Eleanor reflects on Woodes' safety. Where Rogers wants to keep Eleanor safe from other people, Eleanor wants to keep Woodes safe from himself. From 3x03 when Eleanor offered Hornigold to read the pardon address for him, Eleanor started to think not for herself, but for Woodes. All her choices and actions following after that have his well being at the top of her priority list. She always displayed caring up to a point, but always with a great deal of self-intrest as priority. And so, she starts to do what Max did for her in prior and up to 1x02. We even see that in 3x07 in the romance scene, where Woodes desires her but has an initial expression of guilt or hesitation that she immediately picks up on, and then she begins to strip for him, which can be compared to the 1x01 scene between Max and Eleanor, where Eleanor is reluctant to be kissed, but Max coaxes her


End file.
